Actors can fly angelically from
the rafters or rise demonically from the floorboards. Seats can
be shuffled
and shifted, reshaping the playing area for each new production.
Once a gleam in the eye of La Jolla Playhouse’s
artistic director, Des McAnuff, the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre
became a reality in November, with a grand opening gala featuring
actor John Goodman. With its flexible seating system, sometimes
referred to as a “black box,” the Potiker can hold
up to 450
patrons and has been designed to allow limitless configurations
of stage and
audience. “It’s likely that every time we use the theatre,
we’ll rearrange the seating,” says Terry Dwyer, the
Playhouse managing director. “A flexible seating space is
the final complement to any
great theatre complex. Artistically, it’s a great fleshing
out.”
The Potiker is the centerpiece of the new Joan and Irwin Jacobs
Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a $16.5 million, 50,000-square-foot
theatre village. McAnuff credits the architectural firms of RoTo
Architects Inc. and Fisher Sehgal Yanez Inc. with embracing the
unique needs of theatre groups. The result, McAnuff says, “is
a theatre that you enter, not one you just watch.”
The UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance will share access to the
new “black box.” Its first performance there will be
from May 12 through May 21, an undergraduate production of Peter
Weiss’ Marat/Sade under the guest directorship of Stefan
Novinski. The play’s setting—the bath hall of an insane
asylum—will take full advantage of the
theatre’s flexibility. “I expect it will be quite environmental,” says
Walt Jones, UCSD’s theatre department chair.
Jones believes that the increased resources will lend greater professionalism
to student productions and reinforce the relationship between La
Jolla Playhouse and the UCSD theatre department. Dwyer agrees,
noting that the department and Playhouse already share staffing,
set design, warehouse space and alumni support. “Our organizations
are intertwined,” says Dwyer. “And we feel like we’re
building bridges.” 
— Jennifer McEntee |
