Greece Athena Performing Arts Center, Greece, NY

The Greece Athena school has an award winning arts department that traditionally has done their performance in a rented facility - the Eastman Kodak Theater on the ridge. Theater on the ridge is a facility built by Kodak for Kodak, suffice to say a rather nice facility for a high school production.

The productions done by Greece Athena are not typical High School. They have obtained the rights to major show material such as Beauty and The Beast. They routinely build multi thousand pound three-dimensional sets and use flying rigs for actors. Their shows sell out over 10,000 paid tickets for each production.

When the district decided to build a new Theatre at Athena, it was at the outset conceivedto be state of the art. AVL Designs Incorporated was contracted by The Thomas Group architects to provide design for acoustics, stage rigging, theatrical lighting, audio, and video.

The first challenge was to provide acoustical quality in a large venue, 1600 seats. AVL worked with the architect to derive a shape with a minimally overhanging balcony to accommodate the seating. Ceiling clouds and wall sails were incorporated to blend and mix the sound in the room.

AVL worked with the mechanical engineer (IBC engineering) to provide low noise levels in the facility so that everything is heard. The results are stunning with a well-controlled reverberation and tonal response.

The sound system design had to mimic the capabilities of a Broadway Theater yet is operable by students. The choice was made to provide a sound system that is comprised of state of the art digital and analog mixing consoles and DSP processing, 24 track digital audio recording capability, and dozens of wireless microphones. IN day to day use anyone can run the system. For productions the power to save and recall mixes is available.

The main speaker clusters provide true stereo mix in all seats in the house with clarity and dynamics equal to a studio monitor system.

The theatrical lighting system consist of two well-conceived house catwalks and five on stage electrics with 384 ETC sensor advanced feature dimmers. The emphasis control system utilizes state of the art ETC WYSIWYG 3D rendering and control systems controlling a myriad of lighting fixtures with remote control capabilities.

The stage rigging system is once again state of the art utilizing Vortek motorized rigging and controls. This system allows an unprecedented level of accuracy (10,000 of an inch) and safety due to loads sensing and safety systems incorporated. Forty-three Vortex units allow exceptional flexibility.

A JR Clancy Lambda series orchestra lift with a 10-foot travel and 28,000 pound capacity has been provided to allow total flexibility of stage configuration.

Video projection with 10,000 Lumen large screen projectors provides theater like quality even in this large room.