Beecher Walker Architects and Layton Construction built the 130,000 square ft., rebranded as Mountain America Performing Arts Centre. The Centre has two theatres, Centre Stage and Jewel Box, which were outfitted with TAIT’s entertainment automation platform, TAIT Navigator.
The Centre Stage Theatre, which seats 900, has a custom-built, automated stage. It is made with over 300 tons of steel, uses more than 130 motors and features eleven lifts, a main revolve, center stage lift and two slip stages. The entire stage can fully rotate, change elevations up and down, and lower below stage level into the pit area. The centre lift can change rotational axes both counter clockwise and clockwise independent of all the other lifts.
Beecher Walker Architects and Layton Construction built the 130,000 square ft., rebranded as Mountain America Performing Arts Centre. The Centre has two theatres, Centre Stage and Jewel Box, which were outfitted with TAIT’s entertainment automation platform, TAIT Navigator.
The Centre Stage Theatre, which seats 900, has a custom-built, automated stage. It is made with over 300 tons of steel, uses more than 130 motors and features eleven lifts, a main revolve, center stage lift and two slip stages. The entire stage can fully rotate, change elevations up and down, and lower below stage level into the pit area. The centre lift can change rotational axes both counter clockwise and clockwise independent of all the other lifts.
Additionally, Centre Stage’s overhead rigging system is equipped with a performer flying system and two trolley cranes. The cranes and rigging system move set elements on and off stage as directed by TAIT Navigator.
The staging and the trolley cranes, combined with the LED video screens surrounding the in-the-round stage, allows Hale Centre Theatre to story-tell in ways never achieved in the past.
“[The stage] is almost like having another main character of the show. It is truly the marriage of the latest and greatest stage technology with traditional theater. My goodness, TAIT has created the eighth wonder of the world.” – Mark Dietlein, President, CEO, Executive Producer & Marketing Director
The Jewel Box Theatre seats 467 people and was designed as an 11-row proscenium thrust stage for smaller, more intimate productions.
“The bells and whistles of the theatres’ backstage systems were designed over eight years, drawing upon staging experience at the company’s West Valley City theater. Then automated systems were added to increase flexibility. It’s quite magical what they’ve come up with,” says Kacey Udy of working with TAIT designers and engineers in The Salt Lake Tribune.
