Find out what people are saying about the AT&T Performing Arts Center!

October 29, 2009

The Bill and Margot Winspear Opera House and the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the AT&T Performing Arts Center opened the week of October 12, 2009.

The Independent, Observations: Dallas opera — without the soap by Jay Merrick
"The international consultants, Theatre Projects, were key to the scheme as a whole, having recommended the creation of Dallas's arts district. They imagined an American opera house designed for the needs of 21st-century performance, but inspired by the European horseshoe form. The result is a very steeply raked auditorium, with audience and performers unusually close together; the acoustics are said to be superb." Read more.

New York Times, Cool or Classic: Arts District Counterpoints by Nicolai Ouroussoff
"But it is the theater hall [Potter Rose Performance Hall, Wyly Theatre] itself and the machinery that supports it that are the main event. The proscenium wall, like the scenery, can be raised and lowered electronically. Stage floors can drop away and reappear. Several tiers of balconies can be mechanically rearranged in any number of configurations, surrounding the stage on three sides one night, drawing together in a more traditional arrangement the next.

"The purpose of all this engineering is not just to facilitate quick set changes; it also allows the director to manipulate and fine-tune the relationship between actors and audience. If the machinery is used as intended, patrons will find that the emotional distance between them and the actors will change in unexpected ways with each performance." Read more.

The New York Times, Verdi's Moor, Edgy in Cyprus or Dallas by Anthony Tommasini
"But the real star, naturally, was the new [Winspear Opera] house. With it, the Dallas Opera has a special home and an opportunity for artistic growth." Read more.

Dallas Observer, That Wily Wyly, the 'Giant Transformer' by Robert Wilonsky
"In all the coverage of the AT&T Performing Arts Center's opening this week, I'd yet to see anything showing just how the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre interior morphs from intimate to epic, its key selling point. Then I stumbled across this page from Theatre Projects Consultants, the Connecticut-based firm charged with actually designing the 'versatile, multiform space that can be configured for up to 575 seats in proscenium, thrust, traverse, and flat floor arrangements.'" Read more.

Art&Seek on Think TV: The Mind Behind the AT&TPAC by Jerome Weeks
"Richard Pilbrow may be the only creative mind that has worked on both the Winspear Opera House and the Wyly Theatre since the beginning — before the AT&T Performing Arts Center was the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, before even the Meyerson Symphony Center had opened. He was initially brought to Dallas in 1984 to advise on the development of the then-still-mostly-imaginary Arts District." Read more.

Art&Seek on Think TV: The Marvels Inside the Wyly by Jerome Weeks
"Think TV interview with artistic director Kevin Moriarty and project manager Benton Delinger - in a video report on the Wyly industrial insides." Read more.