We are now over halfway through the King’s redevelopment project, and we’ve seen exciting progress throughout the entire building. Most of the demolition is complete, and many new features are starting to take shape.
From the street, you may be able to spot that the theatre’s fly tower has been extended, with external rendering applied to match the existing wall on Tarvit Street. The new fly tower is 4.5 metres higher than the original, creating more space above the stage to fly twice the weight of scenery in and out of the audience’s sight. This will enable the King’s to attract a greater variety of productions than ever before.
The old roof slab has been demolished, while work has commenced on the removal of the existing steel trusses (structural roof supports), paving the way to start constructing the new walkways and then the stage. Excitingly, the scaffolding has been stripped from south elevation of the theatre, revealing a clear view of the newly rendered fly tower for the first time.
Inside the building, door openings for the two new Front of House lifts and adjacent staircases are being created on all levels. Work has also recently commenced on both new lift shafts, which will serve all areas of the building, providing an accessible journey from street to seat and street to stage in an historic first for the King’s.
Elsewhere, steelwork and concrete decking have been installed in the new street level cafe area, which will be open daily to serve as a thriving community hub for Tollcross.
In the auditorium, new concrete decking has been poured at the back of the Upper Circle, ready to accommodate new ladies’ and gents’ toilets, sound and lighting control rooms, a new lighting gantry, follow spot room, plant room and new audio description and captioning rooms. This means that, for the first time in the history of the King’s, we will have dedicated facilities to provide audio described performances for visually impaired customers and captioning for D/deaf customers.
Heating and ventilation ductwork installation has commenced throughout the auditorium and in the attic, alongside masonry pointing and plasterwork repairs.
Behind-the-scenes, the steelwork for the grid floor (which enables our technical staff to operate the fly system) is now complete. Plaster repair work is ongoing throughout the dressing room areas, and ceiling decoration work is due to commence shortly. We’ve had a tantalising sneak preview of what the finished dressing rooms will look like, following a sample of room decoration work. Hopefully panto star Grant Stott will be impressed with the progress made since he popped in to check on his dressing room earlier this year!
