Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1976 - 18

would eventually follow. However, since the political
climate and timing for the bond issue was judged to be
perfect, time was of the essence and all other activities
were scheduled to fall into line. We believe that despite
such limitation the TPAC may serve as a case study
for other regional Performing Arts Centers.

with ensuring passage of the bond, and after that, to
serve as a project review board with the special responsibility of keeping abreast of public opinion. In this manner broad public support was obtained for the project, which, in turn, made it easier to search out other
funding sources.

Second, early in the planning stage, the theatre consultants were encouraged to incl ude potential Tulsa user
groups in program development. Fifty-eight such groups
were solicited and several presentations were made in response to their recommendations. This procedure provided a significant method of measuring community
expectations, resources and limitations.
A third contributing factor was the willingness of the
architects to explore many schemes in an effort to solve
a difficult budget/program/site equation. MYA's dedicated work has been a key factor in delivering on the
promises made during the bond campaign.

The design of a large performing arts center is governed
by many forces such as pragmatism, idealism, provincialism, altruism and so on; it reflects the work of architects
and technicians as well as judgements which are a combination of empirical experience, intuition and politics.
The period during which the concept of a cultural center
is regarded as viable is very crucial, for it is at this time
that its purposes are most vulnerable to drastic attack.
The TPAC, true to form, came to be balanced between
high aspirations and extreme vulnerability. The opposing
nature of these two forces subjected it to delay, compromise and even abandonment. Nonetheless, the Center
evolved from aspiration to funding, to programming, to
design and to construction.

This success may be attributed largely to the way
procedural structure was created during the early development phases, to channel the skills and energies of the
design team and various community, social, political,
business and cultural resources into productive activity.
More than one-half the time from scope planning for the
bond election through bid opening was spent in programming and schematic (conceptual) design.

Among the most persistent erosive forces acting against
TPAC's development were: anxiety over spending too
much money for the arts; conflicting demands from user
groups; the competing attitudes of the "cultural palace
syndrome" people and their opposite numbers who
argued for the minimum because "anything is better than
what we have"; narrow box office (seating capacity)
interests; apathy toward acoustics and theatrical intimacy;
conflicting passions for and against subsidies; the paranoia
among some (not totally unfounded) that artists are
always "ripped off" by government agencies, architects
and consultants; outrage against escalating building costs;
the pervasive feeling that gross to net square footage
ratios typical of performing facilities were too high, and
so on. Additionally, work was plagued by: the temptation
to imitate other centers, the complicated problem of
anticipating new trends in theatre design and technology,
technical controversy over the case building up for large
multi-purpose theatres, and the conflicting positions
over the amount of year-round rehearsal space, production space and performance space to be provided for
resident dance, music, or drama companies. Finally,
plain scepticism about the arts made it difficult to justify
spending money to invite sure losses. This recitation of
woes shows why many proposed centers never gestate
after conception, or are deferred or are dismally built.
The TPAC avoided disaster for four reasons: First,
city government and the business community joined together and established a special Mayor's Building Committee and a Bond Issue Committee. Both were charged

WINTER,1976

Yamasaki reflects, "When we received the requirements, our first reaction was that this was too much to
put on this small site. During the development of early
schemes, we had a rather difficult time. It was like a
cubic jigsaw puzzle and we had the job of fitting all the
pieces together."
The final factor is difficult to describe other than as
gritty determination; a very strong commitment to rind
the best possible solutions, and the determination to serve
local and regional requirements for opera, dance, music,
drama, and related speech, film, and multi-media events.
The commitment to design a center with a variety of
spaces and of sufficient flexibility to allow heavy scheduling includ ing Center-produced events and short residency
seasons. The determination to create conditions conducive
to building audiences and to teaching. The determination
to build a center in which prestigious guest artists could
exist side by side with performances of regional producing
groups.
III
Four distinct, but programmatically related spaces
emerged as the answer to Tulsa's needs; we will call them
the MUSIC HALL (2,406 seats), the PLAYHOUSE
(442 seats), and the STUDIO THEATRES I and II (up
to 300 seats each).
THE MUSIC HALL. With a population of 500,000,
metropolitan Tulsa could not support separate, single
purpose theatres for orchestral music, dance and theatre. Therefore, from the beginning, the concept of the
TPAC was understood to center upon a large multipurpose auditorium.
It is widely held, but we believe an incorrectly formulated belief, that a multi-purpose theatre serves no purpose. We cannot support this notion, because careful
attention to the needs of the various performing groups
has produced multi-purpose theatres capable of accommodating a variety of theatrical events in superior fashion.
Successful multi-purpose theatre design depends
largely upon achieving a workable solution to the problem of variable room acoustics. The demands of a
symphony orchestra and those of a dramatic production are considerably different, with the former requiring

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

USITT

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1976