Rausch Auditorium, housed in the basement of McIntyre Hall, is used by students and professors alike for such events as movie showings, comedy sketch shows and theater productions.
But while the screen makes showing movies a simple process, the Theatre Arts community has spoken up about the outdated and impractical lighting for the stage.
“The difficulty with Rausch lights is that our lighting options are extremely limited,” Kelly Sener, a Theatre Arts major and Co-Publicity Chair for Student Initiative Theatre, said.
According to Sener, the lights are unable to serve more than a simple function on the stage of Rausch. “They are very plain and utilitarian. They serve their purpose, and that is about all they do,” Sener said.
The problem with having this little function in the lights is the effect which changes in lighting have on a production—and the loss of impact for theater productions because of a lack of control.
“The importance of having controlled lighting in an interior space is that it allows you to tell the story by focusing attention,” Sara Freeman, an assistant professor for the Theatre Arts department, said.
In this small auditorium, the stage lights, according to Sener, are different colors on both sides, and when a character moves from one side to the other, the lighting is distracting for the audience and can severely disrupt the message conveyed by a director.
Fixing this problem sounds easy enough, but the attention given to Rausch’s lights is minimal at best. “We don’t actually know who’s in charge of light maintenance,” Hayley Hilmes said. Hilmes was one of the production managers for the Town Crier Speaks Festival, and is the current president of SIT.
According to Hilmes, the last time the lights were adjusted was over a year ago, and that was only to change where some of the lights hit the stage. The known information is that a certified electrician needs to be present when the lights are being worked on, but as for actual repair?
“No one really knows who that falls to … it’s unclear,” Hilmes said.
“In the past, we have had members of SIT go in and try and adjust and fix what we could, but to no avail,” Sener said. It has also been related that the lights have been rusted in the places that would otherwise allow them to move. But without proper maintenance, oxidization has rendered the lights immobile.
More modern and technologically advanced lighting could be attained with more financial assistance going to the theater, but it’s more than just the lights. “We don’t think the auditorium’s electric system can handle…better lights,” Hilmes said. If Rausch was to be renovated, the changes would need to be drastic for every aspect of the lighting.
The state of the theater’s lights is surprising, considering the amount of activity that requires the space. Surprising problems are created for theater groups because of this, most notably the change in the audial and visual senses of the crowd.
“Audiences can hear better when they can see better,” Freeman said, relating the correlation of the lights to the audience’s perception.
The smaller stage and the coziness of Rausch auditorium, in addition to its availability for students, make it a wonderful place to use for these productions. However, in its current state, action needs to be taken for the auditorium.
“I think [the lighting] should be kept functional and up-to-date enough so that the students’ experience working in there is really productive of the skills that they’re building,” Freeman said. With that in mind, perhaps steps can be taken so that future students will have more available for them to utilize, and creative theater can better grasp the attention of the Puget Sound audience.