We design extraordinary spaces
When you’re in an amazing performance space, you can feel it. Theatre Projects knows how to create performance spaces that come alive.
We speak the languages of construction, design, and the arts. From visioning through design and construction, we provide advice on planning and design decisions that affect the art, the architecture, how the performance technology functions, and how artists and audience will use each space.
Working closely with clients, users, architects, and builders, we apply our experience of what makes a dynamic performance space—intimacy, density, flexibility, and simplicity—to create extraordinary spaces.
The creativity of constraints
Having worked on more than 1,500 projects across the world, we know what it takes to transform a vision into a tangible concept—and then develop it from drawings on a screen to a venue that serves a purpose for its community. Every one of our projects has a set of constraints—from budget and site limitations to varied programming needs or the specific quirks of an existing structure. These constraints don’t just help to set the ground rules for our work, they challenge us to be creative.
With a clear understanding of a client’s vision and ambitions, we start the creative process of imagining how we can meet their needs through planning, design, and technology. But truth be told, that’s only part of the story.
The true purpose of our work
Our work goes beyond the nuts and bolts of venue planning, design, and equipment—it goes straight to the heart of how we can make the arts more accessible to everyone. We believe the arts matter. That, in bringing people together in a safe space to explore ideas and share experiences, the arts make a positive contribution to the lives of individuals, communities, and greater society. It’s what draws us to the work we do.White River State Park and Live Nation unveil their new outdoor venue
Tonight, Indianapolis’ newest touring venue, the TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park, will host its first public concert of the 2022 season—and its first public performance since completion!While the venue is a new construction, concerts have been taking place at the same site in downtown Indianapolis for well over ten years. Operator Live Nation had been hosting events with temporary stages and structures in the park each summer and wanted something more permanent, with comfortable accommodations for artists and audiences, while still retaining the atmosphere of the concerts from previous years.
Our acousticians are designing with zero carbon emissions in mind
At Theatre Projects, we’ve been at the forefront of environmentally conscious design—from incorporating natural light to material and product selections that are renewable, reusable, or repurposed. In the early 2010s, we led the industry in adopting LED lighting in performance spaces, designing three of the first venues to have LED fixtures— New Orleans Jazz Museum, Kennedy Center Theater Lab, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Susan and John Hess Family Theater and Gallery.
But now we’re thinking even bigger—beyond lighting, flooring, drapery, and windows to the buildings themselves and their carbon footprints. Like many building types, performance spaces are typically built of concrete. But cement, the main ingredient in concrete, has a massive carbon footprint. From the air pollution caused by quarrying to the chemical process used to make CO2, cement is the source of about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.
