by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

Summary: Ashfield, Mass.-based Clark & Green Inc. has designed a new theater facility in Lenox, Mass., for the acclaimed Shakespeare & Company theater group. The new Shakespeare & Company Center for Production and Performing Arts adaptively reuses a 1960s athletic field house that once enclosed a hockey rink and basketball courts. The new center incorporates sustainable features that include large translucent clerestory windows for natural light, daylight sensors, room-by-room climate control, and a native wetland garden. The design project incorporates flexible seating and integrates the performance, training, production, and office aspects of Shakespeare & Company under one roof. The center will be complete in May 2008.

How do you . . . give new life to a dated athletic facility?

The 199-seat Shakespeare & Company Center adaptively reuses an existing, 54,000-square-foot athletic field house as a 31,200-square-foot, state-of-the-art Shakespeare theater facility. Clark & Green’s three-zone design interconnects a flexible theater with multiple seating configurations, rehearsal area with three studios, and a two-story area housing scene, prop, and costume shops. Clark & Green Principal Stephan Green, AIA, worked on the project with Shakespeare & Company founder and actress Tina Packer; the company’s managing director, Nick Puma; and Conway, Mass.-based landscape architects Walter Cudnohufsky Associates.

The original field house that the new center will occupy was built in 1968, housing a hockey rink and basketball courts to serve the Lennox Boys School. The school property was later purchased by a religious group called Bible Speaks, which built inside the building a church and a 1,200-seat theater. The property was taken over by the National Music Foundation, headed by Dick Clark, and six years ago was bought by Shakespeare & Company. The company retained the old field house but never modified it, using its limited space ad hoc.

Shakespeare training under one roof
“This building has been an underused albatross around their necks,” says Green. “The possibility arose to consolidate all the company’s functions within one building. This meant an integration of three components: a flexible theater venue, a rehearsal area with three studios, and shops for the allied arts of scenery, costuming, and props. The rehearsal spaces and shops will also have office spaces. Under one roof, this new facility will enable them to implement and expand their education program more effectively.”

The center will provide a second performance venue plus integrate rehearsal space and the behind-the-scenes facets of its productions. The integration of the three components was the vision of Tina Packer, says Green. “She is a well-known English actress who takes the training idea from the Royal Shakespeare Company to integrate all aspects of the theater under one roof.” Green describes the primary theater venue, which provides for multiple seating configurations, as experimental.

“It’s a flexible theater with seating on platforms, and the platforms can be moved. One objective is to create spaces that can also be revenue producing, so the theatrical space can be broken down for a corporate event or seminar or rented out for a wedding The rehearsal studios are small-theater size spaces that replicate the primary stage size plus provide additional space for the directors and other actors.” In addition, the center’s lobby and concession area will be a reuse of the structure’s boiler plant.

Eco-friendly features
The architects developed an improved, insulated envelope for the building. “It was a deteriorating site and minimally used building but it’s being converted into a high-use, high-functioning building,” Green says. Since the building was windowless, Green designed large translucent clerestory to introduce natural light into the large scene shop. “It will be a wonderful space for creating scenery.” The center’s lighting system will adjust levels of artificial light using automatic daylight sensors. An adjustable mechanic system throughout will control the climate.

Green adds that transforming the site includes reclaiming a neighboring wetland. An existing drainage swale, adjacent to the main entrance, will be developed into a native wetland garden. “Native species will be introduced and invasive species removed,” Green describes. “The wetland will filtrate the site’s overall runoff and serve as the main entry to the interior.”

A space designed for the needs
Construction is slated to begin December 1 with a May 2008 completion. Notes Green: ”It’s a fast-paced project because their season ends in November with the end of the fall festival, and their summer season begins in May. In between there’s a small window.”

Green says it’s gratifying to work with Shakespeare & Company. “They have great aspirations and are accustomed to working in ad hoc spaces and making due on little. That’s a terrific dynamic that you find in the artistic world. I think the new center is like giving water to someone in the desert because it gives them a space actually designed for their needs. I think it will be a terrific gift to Shakespeare & Company.”