Theatre Space
By Evan Henerson
Exploring
New
Territory
San Diego’s Balboa Theatre
is ready to shine once again
after its renovation.
W
hen it shut its doors in the mid-1980s, the Balboa
Theatre in the heart of downtown San Diego
had enjoyed a career as a cinema and vaudeville
house, playing everything from Spanish language films to
action flicks.
Escaping several brushes with the wrecking ball, the
Balboa — designated as both a local and national historical
landmark — saw the Westfield Horton Plaza mall develop
around it. The stately Spanish Revival-styled Balboa sat
waiting for the funds and the vision to bring it back to life.
“It’s a wonderful building,” says Bob Mather, associate
principal project director at Westlake Reed Leskosky, the
architectural firm charged with the Balboa’s restoration.
“We’ve talked to people who have been in there and
remember their first kiss, and people who had families
The stage of the Balboa theatre during construction
Take Your Time
Spanning more than four years from design to its upcoming
late January 2008 reopening, the three-phase renovation and
restoration effort covered the entire building: retrofitting, mural
restoration and the sprucing up of both stage and auditorium
lighting systems. The project’s nearly $27 million price tag is
funded entirely by the San Diego Redevelopment Agency.
The stage is flanked by two large working waterfalls, rehabilitated and usable — although most likely for precurtain spectacle rather than during any performance. The New York-based
firm EverGreene Painting Studios reestablished the Balboa’s
original lobby and auditorium color scheme. Decorative plaster
and the refurbishment of second floor murals — dulled and
yellowed from years of nicotine — should have people talking
during intermissions.
“Now they have the ability to do almost anything the depth of
the stage allows.” — Darrell Ziegler
involved in the construction. Of everyone I’ve ever talked
to, no one has ever said, ‘Just tear that thing down.’ ”
Now, after the theatre has sat dormant for more than
two decades, it’s curtain up on a multiple use venue that
will house theatre, lectures, dance, live music, comedy and
the occasional convention.
“One of the goals was to make the facility flexible to
accommodate as much as possible,” says Don Telford,
president and COO of San Diego Theatres, which will program and run the Balboa and its downtown neighbor, the
San Diego Civic Theatre.
“That was a lot of the cost of the project,” he continues.
“There’s a significant amount of infrastructure for rigging,
lighting and sound. It’s a well-equipped venue, and part of
the goal is to make it as affordable and accessible to local
nonprofits as possible. The less they have to go out and
rent, the better.”
24 January 2008 • www.stage-directions.com
“It’s one of those magical old-time movie house feels,”
said Telford. “Very grand, very ornate, incredibly colorful.
Within the auditorium, there are 22 different colors. It’s one
of those places where, as we’ve toured people through the
building and walked them into the house, the immediate
reaction is just ’Wow!’ ”
Project workers have installed an ETC Ion console at
the rear of the orchestra, with a wireless remote focus
controlling stage lighting dimmers. Some 244 2.4 kW
stage lighting dimmers, five 6.0 kW dimmers and 24
2.4 kW house lighting dimmers are now available for use
with an Ethernet-based control system that provides
DMX data distribution from the lighting control console to the dimmer racks and control tapes and nodes
located at the stage lighting positions.
“Originally, there was no front of house lighting, no
lighting on the balcony rail,“ says Darrell Ziegler, project
A view of the Balboa house. The photo was taken during the construction period, and the acoustic
drapery shown is being hung to stretch before being stored.
A shot onstage of the Balboa, showing the orchestra shell walls
architect of Westlake Reed Leskosky and the designer
of the Balboa’s lighting system. “Now they have the
ability to do almost anything the depth of the stage
allows.”
They also have the height, thanks to J.R. Clancy’s
new rigging systems, installed by L.A. ProPoint.
Onstage, there’s a new J.R. Clancy manual counterweight system with 33 new battens, not including the
house curtain and fire curtain.
Structuring the Sound
Sound-wise, the theatre already had good “bones”
for classical music, according to David Conant, principal acoustician for McKay Conant Hoover. Even
considering this was a vaudeville house built in 1924,
“there was very little we needed to change to make it
sound really good,” Conant says.
Given that, with a pit that can hold up to 27 musicians, variable acoustics can and will come into play.
To help with that, the Balboa now features highly
absorbent sound banners that lower from slots in the
ceiling and arch along the sidewalls, installed by L.A.
ProPoint. The company used eight of J.R. Clancy’s
Variable Acoustic banner curtain systems, including
motors and banner drums weighing in at over 1,000
pounds, which were installed via a small attic space.
These are controlled with a custom push-button control
system. An orchestra shell consisting of two rows of
overhead ceiling panels and eight 14-foot rolling towers will be used for symphonic performances.
“If you put a pretty good-sized orchestra into a
fully enclosed shell, the overall loudness of the sound
can often bother the musicians,” says Conant. “But
that loudness won’t happen in this room, particularly
because of the sound defusing towers.” Conant adds
that the addition of a portable acoustical eyebrow
hanging over the orchestra pit has been recommended
for the future.
EAW fill speakers mounted at the ceilings cover
the balcony, while Meyer speakers at the front of the
stage apron cover the orchestra. Given the space and
budget limitations, the Balboa’s sound system needs
to be unobtrusive, as well as powerful enough to do
the job.
“We chose this series of loudspeakers due, in part,
to the fact that they sound wonderful, have been
known for their clarity and because we can tight pack
these devices,” says Randal Willis, supervisory consultant and manager of media systems.
The house console, a Yamaha PM5D mixer with 48
channels, can be removed to accommodate a touring sound console or for additional lighting capacity.
According to Willis, the sidewalls were equipped to
accommodate surround sound should theatre operators decide to go that route in the years to come.
Take to the Ground
Situated along bustling 4th Street in downtown San
Diego, the Balboa didn’t offer up much space for the
storage of heating, cooling and electrical equipment.
“There was very little staging area where the contractor could store equipment,” says Ziegler. “The
theatre was previously ventilated, not air conditioned.
We needed space for the equipment and duct work to
cool the auditorium.”
The project team was fortunate. Instead of using
overhead circular air ducts that pipe heating from
above, the Balboa was designed to have air come out
of holes in the floor below the seats in the orchestra
level. When upgrading the facility to include air conditioning, this method of air circulation provided an
atmosphere that was both quieter and energy efficient,
according to Conant.
“That’s the way they used to do it,” says Conant. “In
conventional designs these days, they do it in reverse
direction which is more problematic acoustically.”
This ingenuity reflects the whole of the Balboa
project, where the legacy of the theatre’s past is celebrated, restored and upgraded to a new space that
dynamically serves the San Diego community.
www.stage-directions.com • January 2008 25