Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1977 - 26

Spring of 1975. By May 1, 1975, a grand total of
$3,809,000 had been contributed or pledged. With this
amount, in the bank or pledged, and a number of construction bids in hand, the Board announced that the job
would go forward. The theatre would be closed for one
year and would reopen on May 1, 1976. The 1975-76
regular season of music, dance, and theatre would be
produced in a local high school, thus ensuring that the
audience already developed would not be diverted to
other pursuits while the Grand was dark.
PHASE TWO: RECONSTRUCTION & RESTORATION
The work began as soon as the theatre was closed.
In May and June, the auditorium was gutted except
for the balcony and the cast iron columns which supported it. During this demolition, it was discovered that
the auditorium floor was five layers thick. Earlier efforts
to improve sightlines had resulted in a new floor being
laid on top of the old one beneath it.
By mid.June, the forms for the new dished and terraced parquet floor began to take shape. Code requirements made a reinforced concrete floor mandatory.
The floor was poured in the late summer as excavation
work in the basement area and in the spaces required for
the new lifts - pit and load-in - was initiated. As soon
as possible, the basement floor was poured while the concrete block walls surrounding the pit were laid. By the
end of September, the reinforced concrete stage sub
floor was poured. Simultaneously, the concrete block
proscenium enclosures at either side of the stage were
being erected. Both of these would contain stair towers
for rapid audience movement from the balcony as well
as staff movement from the control point off right to
the various control booths at the rear of the balcony.
As soon as the stage floor had cured, a cherry picker
crane was wedged in through the King Street load-in
door and removal of the seven foot steel trusses over the
auditorium began. As they were removed, they were
replaced with new two foot square high strength trusses.
Above the stage two of the old trusses were left as partial
support for the new grid iron. Their use meant that the
grid - placed above the major portion of the stage would be only 30 feet above the finished stage floor.
Two areas, downstage and upstage of the main grid, would
be higher and utilize loft blocks underhung from steel
fastened between old and new trusses. The downstage
slot would contain a folding asbestos curtain required by
the fire code plus a grand valence and the house curtain.
A second olio roller curtain with a painted drop curtain
will also be hung in this high slot in the future.
As work on the house and stage took place, other demolition and reconstruction was going on in the lobby and
rental space areas. Of major concern to the architects and
builders was the demolition of old exterior walls between
the separate segments of the structure, the Market Street
and King Street parts as they came to be known. The original building had been made up of two separate but connected units. The connecting link-the junction between
the lobby and the crossover and stairway area at the rear
of the parquet circle-did not extend the full width of the
building. Grieves and Armstrong/Childs realized that this
26

SPRING. 1977

space could be turned into a new aud ience circulation area
at both parquet and balcony levels but that it could only
be built after the old connecting roof and side walls were
demolished. This job proved to be more difficult than
originally planned and presaged the onset of a series of
difficulties that came very close to stopping the entire
project altogether.
It was discovered in the process of demolition that
the south wall of the link was in very poor condition
and that additional work would be required for foundation walls and footings. Until this time, demolition and
construction had all closely followed the original estimates prepared by the construction manager. Of course,
there were bound to be some estimates that took advantage of all the best available information but that had to
be watched closely as demolition of the old elements
revealed hidden conditions that could not be judged
with any precision in advance. Would more such problems develop? They would!
The architects had originally planned to retain the
wooden risers in the balcony and gallery areas changing
over to new seating. However, when some sections of the
old risers were opened up for a structural inspection it
was discovered that all of them were in a stage of advanced deterioration and they would have to be rebuilt.
This blow came hard on the heels of revised bids for
plastering and carpentry that were much higher than the
originals. Further troubles surfaced when county funding
turned out to be less than had been anticipated.
By the late winter and early spring of 1976 the project

The Connecting Link. Market Street part is to the right.
Photo courtesy Grand Opera House, Inc.

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

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