Host:
Lyle Kantrovich, Cargill
-Seeking consultant with Human Factors background to help development team in Lotus Notes environment. Contact kfisher@evantageconsulting.com.
-The Target Usability Center will have an opening in the next few months. Details forthcoming with formal announcement.
Caryn presided over the meeting. We began with introductions. Debbie encouraged members to contact her regarding the 2002 dues.
Our speaker was Beth Burns of the Guthrie Theater who told us about the usability issues that are driving the new Guthrie theater design. John Neenan provided us with a short presentation of his new usability testing tool.
Beth Burns is the Director of Education and Community Partnerships for the Guthrie. She identified the Guthrie as having two target audience groups: an internal group composed of staff artists and students and an external group composed of the 400,000 people who attend productions annually. The new Guthrie design will meet the needs of these large and diverse audience groups.
Beth began her explanation of the new design by explaining the current building and its history. The Guthrie was founded in 1963 as a summer theater and has since turned into the flagship theater outside New York. With 32,000 scribers, the Guthrie has the largest theater subscription body in the United States. A key design feature of the current Guthrie is the thrust stage that allows the audience to be seated on three sides of the stage. This type of stage is perfect for classical theater, such as Shakespeare. However, it is not optimal for contemporary productions.
The new theater will have three environments: a thrust stage, a presidium stage, and a "Home for Future Theater." The goal of this ambitious design is to create a building that will serve the community for the next 100 years. The thrust stage will have the same seating as the old building with wider isles, bigger seats, and accessibility seating. All the seats will still be no more than 50 feet from the stage. The presidium stage will be intended for the presentation of contemporary works. It will have 700 seats. The "Home for Future Theater" will nurture the process of developing art. The new building will also have an onsite restaurant, more rest rooms, and a coatroom.
Beth explained that the new building design was inspired by the river and skyline and attempts to balance function and form. She spoke about the highly diverse external audience and the need to support this diversity in all the building details. For example, the pattern and color of the seats will be diverse in an attempt to blend the appearance of the dressed up and dressed down audience. Many of the design decisions are being made by focus groups composed of a variety of internal and external audience members. It's really a fascinating process!
For more information, you are welcome to contact Beth as bethb@guthrietheater.org. You can also visit www.guthrietheater.org to subscribe to gmail for regular updates.
After Beth spoke, John Neenan provided us with a short presentation of his new usability testing tool. We all agreed that John should return and provide a more extensive presentation during our next meeting.
Caryn presided over the meeting in DeeDee's absence this month.
Debbie encouraged members to contact her regarding the 2002 dues.