When architects from REX/OMA conceived Dallas’s Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, they envisioned the ultimate flexible performance space. The building is designed so that the theater’s interior can be radically reconfigured by a small crew of stagehands from a proscenium layout to a thrust-stage arrangement or a flat-floor room in just a few hours. Blackout shades can be pulled up to reveal its three facades of glass and to open the chameleonlike, 109-by-94-foot hall to the city. Auxiliary programmatic elements are piled above and below (but mostly above) the ground-level performance chamber to create a 132-foot-tall tower. Instead of the horizontal layout more typical of theaters, functions are stacked “like a giant game of Jenga,” says John Coyne, a principal of Theatre Projects, the Wyly’s theater consultant.
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.