Everything stacks up at the Wyly

The world's first ‘vertical theatre’ in Dallas

The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre is a distinctive landmark in the AT&T Performing Arts Center, set inside a 10-acre urban park of the Dallas Arts District. There’s much to admire in the exterior of this 12-story cube with an outer shell of perpendicular aluminium tubes, but from the outside there is little indication of the fascinating and complex goings-on taking place within.

The 80,300-square-foot building is one of four venues in the complex. What makes it stand out from the others is its ground-breaking, or rather space-breaking, design. The performance space inside is entirely modular and can be remodeled and personalized to the specifications of artistic directors.

In traditional theatres, auxiliary support spaces (such as make-up rooms, rehearsal studios, set build, storage and offices) are positioned around a core space of auditoria. The Wyly architecture turns this accepted layout on its head by stacking the theatre vertically so that the back-of-house and front-of-house areas are situated above and below several stories of performance space.

An automated ‘superfly tower’ services the stage levels, enabling scenery and seating to be lifted or lowered from storage facilities. SERAPID Rigid Chain telescopic actuators push or pull these systems, lifting and lowering them in and out of position. The systems are heavy-duty with one weighing in at 60,000 pounds and another at a massive 120,000 pounds. The ‘superfly’ tower is key to the rapid reconfiguration of performance areas. There are six pre-set arrangements that can be set up in less than a day: proscenium, thrust, traverse, arena, studio, and ‘flat floor’. This unprecedented flexibility, all facilitated by SERAPID LinkLift Columns, will allow the Wyly to host a wide range of classical and experimental drama, dance and musical productions.

Rem Koolhaas, one of the theatre’s award-winning designers, commented: ‘By stacking all facilities necessary for the functioning of a theatre in a single vertical volume, we create a situation where the technologies of the stage define an infinite variety of theatre arrangements, from the completely open to the completely enclosed.’

While it’s not the first of its kind to offer pedestrian views, the 600-seat Potter Rose Performance Hall will certainly excite the imagination. Almost completely surrounded by glass walls the design allows for ground-level sight into the theatre and gives directors an unprecedented opportunity to use Dallas as an artistic backdrop for performances.

In order to complete their winning team, SERAPID asked Stage Technologies Las Vegas to join the project at an early stage, creating a bespoke system for controlling the modular seating lifts that transport the seating up and down the ‘superfly’ tower. The system uses ‘smart’ reversing starters to control a number of SERAPID Lift Systems and Turntables totaling 26 axes. There are two main lifts, one of which descends all the way to the building’s basement, where it collects the seating wagons; this is rumored to be one of the longest SERAPID lifts in the world, traveling 38 feet. Each of the six smaller lifts (three on either side) carries a three-position turntable. Each turntable has two ‘risers’, also equipped with SERAPID LinkLift Columns, that extend to form the tiered seating. 

Safety needed to be of the highest priority and highly integrated throughout the building, requiring custom-written safety code from the Stage Technologies technicians. The Wyly installation is one of the first in the world to use ‘failsafe wireless’, which implements Siemens ProfiSAFE technology over a wireless connection to achieve emergency stop capability safely to Category 4 in accordance with EN 954-1, and SIL 3 in accordance with IEC 61508. These extra safety measures provided by Stage Technologies help to make the SERAPID Lift Systems in the Wyly some of the safest in the world.

Stage Technologies also provided development and modification of cutting-edge, wireless automation equipment - technology that allows a single operator to move the SERAPID Lift Systems at pre-set speeds from anywhere in the building where the Stage Technologies wireless signal is available.

Featured in late 2009 in Wired magazine online, the theatre has already begun to make its imprint on the landscape of theatre. With its ultra-flexible configuration and first-of-its-kind wireless automation technology coupled with the advanced technology of SERAPID’s lift systems, we can expect it to deliver on audiences’ high expectations.

More information: SERAPID lift control video

Image credit: courtesy SERAPID taken by Michael Mulvey