Theater & Music Classrooms
Theater & Music Classrooms
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The 450-seat theater and band room would be brand-new; the chorus room, changing rooms, bathrooms, and some offices would be renovated space. This represents a standard facility that the district has never had in the history of our schools.
This portion of the project would utilize the space that is currently "behind the curtain" in the cafetorium, what used to be the high school locker rooms, and then would expand off the outside of the building.
Zooming in on the theater and music rooms, draw your attention to the numbered areas and see an explanation for them below:
The new theater would be an addition to the high school building, but would have a separate entrance (the doors in the lower portion) and a door that can be locked so that the theater is a discrete space from the school itself. This solves the problem, currently, of not being able to keep people from roaming the high school during performances, which is a security concern. It will hold 450 attendees, and will be curtained to create a more intimate space for classes and smaller shows. Improvements include:
The auditorium would eliminate the need for setting up and taking down the dining space used by high school students daily, and allow simultaneous academic use of the space while food service happens elsewhere.
Significant increase in capacity for events, which would be utilized by all grades.
Storage behind the stage, where things are now stored on the current stage.
Much improved acoustics for listeners. The current cafetorium was originally designed as a gymnasium, and so is not acoustically sound.
Much improved seating comfort for attendees. The current cafetorium uses temporary plastic chairs.
Much improved lighting and recording capabilities, so that performances can be captured and/or live-streamed.
Much improved experience for Gray town gatherings, for things like town meeting, etc.
The new band rehearsal room would allow for the entire band to practice inside at once and allow for in-room storage for all of their instruments. Right now, they are right at the edge of capacity, items stacked in the corners, even with current numbers depleted by covid. By the time the middle school numbers hit the high school, there will be no way to fit all of the students for one rehearsal.
The new chorus room would allow the entire chorus to practice inside at once and provide a much-improved teaching and learning area. Right now, both the chorus and small portions of the band learn and rehearse in the former locker rooms, which are simply not built for the purpose. The music teachers have done a great job "making do" for more than 15 years, since the cafetorium was created during 2007/8 renovations.
This space would be used as a scene shop for the drama program, which produces three separate productions every year, with as many as 50 students involved. Currently, they build their sets directly on the stage. This space is designed to allow easy access to the stage and to be useful for small-group rehearsals by music and theater students.
This space would offer a changing room and "green room" for theater students and those performing on the stage. Currently, they cross the halls to change and use the bathroom.
These bathrooms would be accessible to the outside, so that visitors and those students using the fields would have an available set of bathrooms (in addition to new bathrooms being created as part of the fields project). Currently, all bathroom facilities outside at the high school are port-a-potties.
These bathrooms would be newly created to serve those attending performances. Currently, there are limited bathroom options next to the cafetorium for public use.
This is office space that would replace office space eliminated by renovations elsewhere in the project. It is likely, in current thinking, that the special education office would be here. With easy public access to these offices, it's a great option for the many parent meetings the special education staff has during the week.
This theater, which WRBC designed for the Brewer Community School, is a rough approximation of the sort of space we can expect.
The image on the left is what is currently in place. The image on the right is a very rough draft of what the outside might look like. It is intended more to give an idea of placement, size, and scale than it is for eventual finished exterior design, which would be developed more specifically should the bond project pass.
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