Theatre designer to discuss creation of Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience

September 19, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

On Sept. 22, theatre designer Richard Pilbrow will discuss the creation of the new Theatre for A New Audience’s Brooklyn home.

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In 2000, Harvey Lichtenstein, recently retired executive director of BAM, invited Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), a modern classical theatre, to build its first home in what was previously known as the BAM Cultural District.

On Monday, Sept. 22, in the third installment of “Creating a Theatre for a New Audience,” titled “Genesis of a New Theatre,” Richard Pilbrow — theatre designer, producer, author, lighting designer and founder of Theatre Projects — will discuss recent revolutionary changes in theatre architecture that led to the creation of the new Theatre for A New Audience’s home.

Established in 1979, TFANA produces Shakespeare alongside a wide range of other major authors. Jeffrey Horowitz, founding artistic director, wanted space that would be both intimate and epic, but without one fixed perspective, so that artists could change the configuration of the stage and audience depending upon the needs of a particular play and production. The Cottesloe at London’s Royal National Theatre inspired Horowitz.

A team consisting of architects Hugh Hardy and Geoff Lynch (H3 Collaboration Architecture), theatre consultants Jean-Guy Lecat and Richard Pilbrow, acoustician Russell Todd, and graphic artist Milton Glaser collaborated with Horowitz on designing the 299-seat Scripps Main Stage and 50-seat Rogers Studio.

At Monday’s event, Pilbrow will be interviewed by David Barbour, editor of “Light & Sound America” and of Richard’s recent book, “A Theatre Project.”

The event is free and will take place at 7 p.m. at Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place).