The current May/June issue of mondo*dr features our recent projects at Kellett Theatre, Kowloon Bay.
Kellett School – The British International School in Hong Kong was started in 1976 by a group of like-minded parents who sought a high-quality British-style international education, rich in the arts and delivered in a small-school setting. Nearly 40 years later, Kellett School Kowloon Bay opened to around 900 students with world-class facilities.
Designed by Joel Chan and Nick Glave of P&T Architects and Engineers, the new campus in Kowloon Bay is spacious and bright, it houses separate primary and secondary sections and an abundance of facilities for sport, art and recreation. Performing arts facilities include art and drama studios, music rooms, and a theatre designed to a professional standard setting for concerts, performances and presentations.
Kellett offers a range of explorative and performance opportunities for students to engage with music and drama as an art form. Musicians, artists, performers and high-profile speakers regularly visit the school to share their expertise, passions and adventures with the students. All activities take full advantage of the new Kellett Theatre, a purpose-built performance space fully equipped with stage lighting equipment, audio & video broadcast facilities as well as a motorised orchestra pit.
Macostar, a Hong Kong-based stage lighting and machinery system specialist, received instruction to proceed with design works for the Stage Lighting, Machinery & Rigging, Audio and Video Broadcast systems for the new Kellett Theatre. Once Penta Ocean Construction had been appointed, Macostar was contracted to supply and install the stage lighting, audio and video broadcast infrastructure and the related stage engineering solutions within the venue. From initial concept to completion, Macostar delivered a safe, high-performance and efficient solution.
Kellett Theatre has 385 seatings. The stage features an innovative-designed revolving acoustic reflector panels that can also simulate the typical theatre wings, providing functional and flexible settings for drama and music performances. As the school specified a stage with an orchestra pit, in order to establish an efficient and reliable solution that can transform the venue in minutes, Macostar worked closely with Canadian stage equipment specialist Gala Systems to build a 42m2 motorised orchestra lifting platform in front of the proscenium. The multi-level platform can be adjusted from a submerged full orchestra pit, to a raised-up extended apron. Gala Systems provided engineering and platform lift design support to their ND9 Spiralift, the world’s most compact lifting system, which allows the gentle movement and stable support of the platform, and can be configured easily in modular designs to suit any platform geometry and building architecture.
In addition to the orchestra platform, other movable stage lighting infrastructures were installed with motorised rigging machineries to provide automatic control. Widely used in theatres and TV studios with high safety factor, Macostar’s MACHO pile winding winches, drum winches, and draw curtain machine were chosen and respectively attached to 7 Medley lighting bars (featuring Trabes EURO 29 Trio trusses at the front of house), 4 Medley scenery bars, and a front curtain track that supports the 17.5m-wide J&C Joel DFR Velvet Velour traditional theatre curtains. Movements of lighting bars and scenery bars can be precisely controlled via a MACHO touchscreen hoist controller, or a wireless handheld remote tablet in a simulated floor plan interface.
As theatre technicians in Kellett are more familiar with traditional theatrical fixtures as installed in other campus locations, Macostar supplied 69 pcs of LDR’s Nota series fresnel, profile and PC spotlights, Inno cyclorama lights, as well as Canto MK2 followspot for this medium sized theatre. Nota fresnels give variable-spread, well-defined soft beams, while Nota 18/36 & 30/55 profiles offer well-defined, flat field profile projection. The lightings were fitted with Macostar’s XACT 19 RDM colour scrollers, allowing lighting designers to maximise the choice of colours on stage setting design.
Other RDM-ready devices include Zero 88’s Solution series lighting console, offering simple hands on control of conventional generic and moving light parameters with submaster and cue stack control. The console also features networking, offline editing and a comprehensive fixture library to complete an outstanding control package for this multi-purpose venue.
Macostar also gave a high performance, reliable, and easy-to-install dimming solution with its DPC24X2D Professional RCD Dimmer Cabinets and MARs 3120 dimmer packs. With Macostar’s MATCH DMX distribution peripherals for easy connection and compatibility with any standard DMX devices, this stage lighting system is complete with a future-proof design, upgradable to new buzzing technologies such as LED performance lightings.
The professional audio system aims to deliver live sound reinforcement and help theatre technicians to setup, manage and mix audio channels quickly and easily. Macostar supplied a Yamaha MG32/14FX Analogue Mixing Console with built-in SPX digital effects as main control and a Mackie PRO FX16 Audio Mixer for independent on-stage sound control. Crown XTi Series power amplifiers with build-in DSP were chosen for amplifying audio sources. 4 JBL VRX928LA loudspeakers were installed, forming a lightweight and compact, two-way line-array speaker system, altogether with 1 pair of JBL AC18/26 2-way loudspeakers to distribute the sound more evenly over the entire audience area. 2 JBL MRX-512M stage monitor speakers, and 2 Yamaha MSP5 STUDIO powered monitor speakers were also specified. The theatre is also equipped with Tascam CD-200i CD player with iPod dock, Denon DBT1713-UD Universal Audio/Video Transport and Shure SLX 124/30 combo wireless microphone system.
The video system allows users to input video signals from the stage and the equipment room. Macostar supplied Extron’s HDMI matrix switcher, video distribution amplifier, video scaler, video switcher, and VGA and HDMI extenders to handle and transmit video signals to the TV monitors backstage as well as the 2 Da-Lite Projection Screens on stage, accompanied by Panasonic PT-EX16K and PT-EX12K LCD Projectors. The system is also integrated with a Sony EVI-H100S HD pan/tilt/zoom camera with HD-SDI interface, and a Sony BRC-300 remote control unit for capturing lecturer and audience, transforming the theatre into a place for real-time conferencing, training, as well as distance learning.
