TheatersCentral OhioColumbus

Northland High School Theater

Northland High School's auditorium in Columbus was being operated from a crow's nest. The sound and lighting boards sat in the mezzanine, above and behind the house, which is where boards were commonly put when the room was built and is a difficult place to run a show from now. The seating on both levels had reached the end of its life, the stage rigging and curtains were original, and the floor finishes included material that had to be abated rather than simply removed.

Columbus City Schools included the auditorium in a refresh of the gym and auditorium carried on a pre-bid Gordian job order contract. The auditorium scope replaces the lower level and mezzanine seating, with ADA seating provided on the lower level; relocates the sound and lighting boards down to the lower level onto a new lockable desk; and replaces the stage curtains and rigging, the stage theatrical lighting, the auditorium sound system with new wireless microphones, the projector and motorized screen, the first and second floor entrance doors, and the stage ceiling, which becomes a black grid with tiles.

The stage floor is sanded, refinished and stained. VCT flooring comes out, asbestos flooring components are abated, and carpet goes down in its place. Walls, ceilings and the bare concrete under the seats are painted, and the interior doors that remain are repainted. Aisle lighting is added, either in the floor or in the seats. An acoustician evaluates the room before new acoustical treatment is furnished. On the mezzanine, the accordion partition is removed and the handrail is investigated to determine whether it has to be raised.

Northland auditorium under green wall wash with the stage lit in purple

Northland auditorium seating and balcony seen from the stage

Rear view of the Northland auditorium with new acoustic wall panels

New green and grey seating rows in the Northland auditorium

Northland stage lit blue behind the renovated house seating

Technical Discussion

Moving the boards out of the crow's nest

The single decision that changes how this auditorium is used is also the least expensive item on the list: the sound and lighting boards come out of the mezzanine crow's nest and go to the lower level, onto a new lockable desk.

Students mix what they can hear and see. From an enclosed position above and behind the house, an operator hears a room they are not sitting in and watches the stage at an angle nobody in the audience has. Every correction they make is a guess about a different acoustic. Moving the position down into the seating area means the mix that sounds right to the student is the mix the audience is getting, which removes an entire category of problem that schools usually try to solve by buying more equipment.

The desk answers two other things at once. Supervision is the first. A crow's nest is a room a teacher cannot see into from the house, and it is used by students during evening events when staffing is thinnest. A desk in the seating area is in everyone's line of sight. Security is the second. The boards are among the most portable expensive items in the building, and a lockable desk in a supervised room protects them better than a locked door upstairs, because a locked upstairs door only works when someone remembers to lock it.

Placing the position first also sets up the rest of the work. The desk location drives the conduit runs for the new sound and lighting systems, it has to be reconciled with the new lower level seating layout and the ADA positions, and it determines where the aisle lighting has to break. It is worth deciding before the seats are ordered, not after.

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