The Dee and Charles Wyly Theater

In the typical theater, the proliferation of front-of-house and back-of-house spaces threatens to strangle the auditorium itself, buffering the performance from the outside world. The compact, vertical orientation of the Wyly Theatre, with its 11 storeys, allows support spaces to be stacked above and beneath the auditorium rather than wrapped around it. No longer shielded by transitional and technical areas – foyer, ticket counters, backstage facilities – this reimagining of the theatre typology exposes the auditorium to the city on all sides. On alternate nights, the Dallas Theatre Center, for whom the Wyly will be a new home, can perform Shakespeare in a hermetic container one night, or – opening the blackout blinds along the exterior glass walls – with the city of Dallas as a backdrop the next. The tallness and simplicity of the box form, together with the unique visibility of the activities in the theatre, gives the building prominence in the large new complex of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. The form also facilitates innovation in the theatre’s mechanics: the conventional fly tower above the stage has been extended vertically (with program concentrated around it on multiple levels), and can pull up both scenery and seating. This allows artistic directors to rapidly change the venue into a wide array of configurations that push the limits of the ‘multi-form’ theatre: proscenium, thrust, traverse, arena, studio, and flat floor – in which the seating, and the balconies, can be removed entirely. The stage and the floor of the auditorium are deliberately made of non-precious materials – the floor can be drilled, nailed into, and painted at will. In this way, together with the easily manipulable seating and stage configuration, the Wyly Theatre seeks to preserve and elaborate the flexible, improvisatory nature of the Dallas Theatre Center's original home. Project Architects: Erez Ella, Vincent Bandy, Tim Archambault, Vanessa Kassabian Team: Haviland Argo, Steve Chen, Dan Choi, Robert Donnelly, Selva Gurdogan, Jonathan Handel, Stine Hansen, Oke Hauser, Andrew Heid, Nahyun Hwang, Ashley Klein, Trine Kobbelvedt, Natalia Ibanez Lario, Soren Sigurd Larsen, Mads Kristensen, Filip Rem, Beatriz Ramo, Gro Sarauw, Max Schwitalla, Rooshad Shroff, Gregers Tang Thomsen, Lisa Tiedje, Angelica Trevino, Kristine Wander, Monika Wittig, Dolly Yarur Acoustics: DHV – Renz van Luxemburg, Ben Kok, Theo Raijmakers Accessibility: McGuire Associates – Kevin McGuire Constructability: McCarthy Construction – Gary Akin, Wayne Hendricks Cost: Donnell Consultants Inc. – Stewart Donnell, Athol Joffe, Steve Ryan Executive Architect: Kendall / Heaton Associates – Rex Wooldridge, Pat Ankney, Vince Nguyen, Matt Upchurch Enclosure: Front, Inc. – Marc Simmons, Brian Guerrero Furniture: Quinze & Milan – Arne Quinze, Tom DeGres, Alain Gilles