Allen Elizabethan Theatre Oregon Shakespeare Festival
ASHLAND, OREGON
From its 1880’s Chautauqua roots,
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
has blossomed into a four-acre
complex housing one of America’s
most successful repertory theatre
companies. KA provided acoustic
design consulting services for the
largest of the Festival’s venues, the
Allen Elizabethan Theatre, completed
in 1992. Located in the scenic town of
Ashland, Oregon, this theatre began
as an open air performance space,
enclosed by a circular concrete wall,
with a Tudor-style Shakespearean
fixed stage patterned after London’s
historic Fortune Theatre (completed in
1599). The Allen Elizabethan Theatre
was designed to maintain the open-air
ambience of the original while providing
greater protection from
weather and traffic noise,
more seats, improved sight
lines and lighting positions,
and better acoustics.
PROJECT DETAILS
Kirkegaard Associates
Room Acoustics Design
Sound Isolation
Mechanical Noise Control
The structure is a
reinterpretation of an
Elizabethan playhouse,
with a covered balcony and
high walls that integrate
the historic stage and its
backdrop wall around an
open center. Careful shaping
of the theatre’s rear walls
Treffinger, Walz, MacLeod
Architects & Planners
San Rafael, CA
Architect
and the ceilings under and
over the balcony returns
sound to nearby audiences.
These reflections reinforce
the stage sound and protect
the audience in the center
seating from confusing late
reflections. Other surfaces
that faced the stage were
treated to weaken confusing
echoes.
The theatre also integrates
control rooms, toilets and
concessions. KA provided
design services to protect
audiences from noise
generated in these spaces.
Auerbach Pollock Friedlander
San Francisco, CA
Theatre Consultants
1,198-seat theatre
Construction Cost:
$7.5 million
Completion Date: 1992
Photo Credits: Oregon Shakespeare Festival