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Acoustic design, Wachovia Playhouse
The 250-seat Wachovia Playhouse offered its own acoustic challenges. Sound absorptive materials are patched on the walls in an irregular checkerboard pattern. "Originally, the absorptive patches were supposed to be pegboard," says Reber, "which would have established a consistency of materials and look between the two theaters." These patchwork panels were also changed out to fabric in the final execution.

One side of the Wachovia is an exterior wall. Currently a trolley track runs along that wall and is used by a tourist trolley. The plan for this track is to become part of a light rail system for commuter service, with a stop at ImaginOn. "There was some concern about rail noise and vibration in the theater," says Reber, "which is only about 35 feet from the tracks. Directly underneath the theater is a parking garage, which was another concern. The theater is designed as a partial box-in-box construction. On top of the structural floor slab is a secondary concrete floor slab supported on flexible, neoprene isolators. Secondary interior walls around the theater are resiliently decoupled from the structural walls to complete the isolation "box." Commonly, a box-in-box construction consists of four walls and a ceiling. But in this instance, since energy would be coming up from the ground, an isolated ceiling was not installed, but an extra-heavy roof slab was. Reber notes that installing a secondary, isolated ceiling in a theater is always extremely complicated, and usually not practical.

FOH systems design
Once acoustic design challenges for the theaters were met, design for the venues' audio systems was far less problematic. "From an audio standpoint," says JaffeHolden Senior Audio Consultant, David LaDue, "if the program does not involve acoustic music performance, the drier the hall acoustic, the better. There is more sonic energy control in a dry space. For amplified musical program material, if the theater company wants to add reverberation, they have the ability to add it electronically without having to fight the natural acoustics of a live room."

Equipment for both theaters was selected to meet the Children's theater's level of use and budget; "We provided a high quality system with equipment that you might expect to find in some of the best theaters in the country." Front-of-house loudspeaker systems consist of EAW loudspeakers powered by QSC amplifiers. For the 570-seat McColl: two EAW KF300e loudspeakers and one SB330e (center cluster, top tier); one MQM-DF (center cluster, bottom tier); two JFX260z's and two JFX290z's (upper and lower side proscenium, respectively); two SB180P subwoofers; and five EAW UB12Se-70V (front fills). Effects monitors are EAW UB12Se's (four), JF80's (four), and SM122e portables (four). A total of 13 QSC CX series amplifiers are configured to the outputs of the system's EAW MX8750 digital signal processors. The smaller scale Wachovia theater is covered by a center cluster (an EAW MQM-DF), left and right speakers (EAW MK2264's), plus two SB180P subwoofers, also powered by QSC with EAW digital signal processing.

These are sound systems that do not call attention to themselves: "When used for slight amplification of children's and untrained voices," says LaDue, "the system is very discrete. Most theater goers would not notice that sound was being amplified at all. This is both a function of the sound system design as well as the sound designer's skill."

"The acoustics for both theaters are great," says Children's theater systems operator, Van Coble, Jr., "and that makes it pretty easy to get a good mix, and a pleasure to work with both systems. JaffeHolden and the installation crew [Video Systems of the Carolinas] did a great job."

A mix of both digital and analog solutions was implemented for the two theaters: for McColl, a Mackie TT24 digital console (48 inputs, 12 Aux sends, 8 group outputs) and for Wachovia, a Soundcraft Spirit LX-7II analog console (24 inputs, 4 Aux sends). "I did not have any experience with the new Mackie live digital desk console before coming to ImaginOn," says Coble. "Still, this console has been user friendly and a pleasure to operate. The onboard DSP adds to the flexibility of this desk."

In the Children's theater's previous home, sound designer, Gary Sivak, worked with a system he describes as, "pretty basic:" an analog board with "no compression and no limiting," a single graphic EQ unit, and four loudspeakers running in stereo mode flown above a wide stage in a very shallow room. But Sivak did have a year-plus experience with SFX Machine compiler and digital audio effects software (also part of the new theaters' systems) which, he says, changed the way he did sound design.

"Van and I are a great match," says Sivak. "He knows the system inside-out, and I know how to use positions and routing to get the theatrical effects I want. Together, in these new theaters, I've learned more about systems design and he's learned more about sound design."

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