The challenge
Luckley House School in Wokingham, Berkshire is a coeducational day and boarding school for pupils aged 11-18 years. It cherishes the performing arts, with its invaluable contribution to developing communication skills, creativity and self-confidence and wanted to bring more of it to their students. To do that, they had to build a new performance space. This space would be used by the school as a theatre, dance and drama studio, workshop but also used by the local community too.
The solution
Torpedo Factory Group (TFG) was appointed to work alongside Britain’s leading theatre consultants, Charcoal Blue. The brief was to a create a new performance space for Luckley House School, The Whitty Theatre, with a flexible stage lighting, audio, and visual infrastructure. The building is largely single-storey but has a gallery level of seats accessible within the volume of the auditorium.
Luckley House School wanted a performance system which was dynamic and user-friendly. Their aim was to have a multi-functional art centre which was not only available to the school but to the local community.
The Torpedo Factory Group designed and installed the stage lighting, audio visual technology for the newly built theatre.
The benefits
Opened by the HRH Prince Edwards, Earl of Wessex, the Whitty Theatre is beautifully equipped 174-seat professional theatre with state-of-the-art audio visual and stage technology. It was cost effective to deliver and is much used by the school as a theatre, dance and drama studio, workshop. It also generates revenue as it’s a popular hire venue for a variety of events including plays, dance, music, film, lectures, and conferences.
