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J&C Joel on Right Track at St John Bosco’s Arts College
Tracking and curtain specialists J&C Joel has designed, specified and installed a complete and fully flexible installation at St John Bosco’s Arts College in Croxteth Liverpool.
The multi-track drape installation is in two parts. The first divides the auditorium of the College’s multi-purpose theatre and concert room into five sections, and the second sees the stage completely refurbished with a flexible stage which consists of a full set of legs, borders, stage drapes, front tabs and supporting stage machinery.
The new track and curtain system is part of a complete refurbishment project that transformed the room into a dynamic, modern, functional performance and learning environment for St John Bosco, which is also host school for the adjacent City Learning Centre. The College specialises in arts courses featuring dance, drama, music and physical and expressive arts.
The refurbishment was financed through funding that became available when St John Bosco’s attained Arts College status in September 2004. Formally, the room had only seen general maintenance since the 1940s, when the place was originally built!
The project was driven forward by head teacher Mrs Anne Pontifex, who contacted locally based company Adlib Audio to tender for supplying a complete sound, lighting and AV system. They in turn contacted J&C Joel to provide the specialist tracking, mechanics and curtain elements needed to partition the room for maximum flexibility.
Mrs Pontifex had previously worked with Adlib on a similar project, as the company has one of the best reputations in the UK for specifying appropriate production systems for schools, colleges and educational establishments.
For J&C Joel, the project was managed by Tony Griffiths who at the completion commented: “It’s been a really rewarding project to work on. The feedback from Anne, the school, the students and everyone now using the new space has been incredible! Having the new facilities available has opened up a new world for them in terms of what they can achieve with their creative projects.”
Onstage, J&C Joel supplied three pairs of specialist moving legs which enable the 9m x 6m stage area to be divided in half in both width and depth as each performance dictates. To support the moving legs there’s also two pairs of moving stage backs, three sets of moving borders and a cyclorama.
In the auditorium, Tony specified over 100 metres of Triple E’s PLASA Innovation Award winning 3-way track, which was installed around the full exterior of the room and in configuration shapes to enable the room to be sub divided. Chosen because of its cosmetic appeal and very smooth travel the 3-way track is a flexible hardwearing track purposely designed for this style of project. In total, along with the stage curtains over 1,000 square metres of black and coloured wool serge fabric was used.
The new technical infrastructure opens a myriad of possibilities to the 1200 students and staff in terms of staging productions. It enables the traditional theatre stage to be used for full scale performances of all types – and the auditorium can now be used in many different formats due to its divide-ability. It can be utilised as a studio space, or for productions staged in-the-round or in traverse if required.
The room has been in constant use since the completion of the works for a wide variety of shows, as well as for seminars, teaching and training sessions, and workshops and as general class breakout areas – with the easy division of the auditorium via the curtain tracking system. The installation has also been designed so that when curtained off, each smaller area can also have its own lighting and sound elements rigged on trussing above as appropriate.
The auditorium is also sometimes used to house peak time overspill from the School’s dining and cafeteria room next door, when again the curtaining proves invaluable.
“We’re all absolutely thrilled,” states Anne Pontifex. “It’s pleasing having a really workable space of our own and especially one that is so versatile. Previously we had to share a smaller stage at the adjoining CLC. The theatre has gone from no-one wanting to use it before, to being fully booked for all types of activities. It’s a massive success.”
In picture: pupils at St John Bosco’s performing in their 2005 Christmas Revue – the first show to utilise the new production facilities.
13th December 2005
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