THEATRE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN 85 This is a cOl/til/uatiol/ of the publicatiol/ of recel/t thearre architecture begul/ iI/ the JI'il/ter 1986 issue ~l TD&T. These projects IIwe displared at the 1985 USITT COlzlerel/ce. Descriptil'e text I,'as supplied br the participal/ts. -ed. Bluma Appel Theatre St. Lawrence Centre Toronto, Ontario, Canada Owner: City of Toronto Architect: The Thorn Partnership Theatre Design Consultants: Theatre Projects Consultants Acoustical Consultants: Valcoustics Canada Interior Design Consultants: W. Murray Oliver Consulting Structural Engineers: Robert Halsall & Associates Mechanical Engineering Consultants: Eiland Willison Completion: 1983 Seating Capacity: 890 Expected Use: Drama and musicals by resident company, recitals, meetings, visiting companies in summer The Bluma Appel is a totally new theatre built within the shell of the "old" 1970 St. Lawrence Centre. The first theatre had been such a resounding failure for the first ten seasons that when Eddie Gilbert was appointed artistic director of the resident company (Toronto Arts Productions, now the CentreStage Company) he made the remodeling of the mainstage an urgent priority. The old theatre had an amphitheatre auditorium holding over 800 in a single stadium-like bowl. This slab of seating hal f -heartedly em braced a \'ery \\'ide semi-circular thrust or, alternatively, faced a 70 foot wide proscenium opening in a manner not unlike ew York's Vivian Beaumont Theater (1965) on which the St. Lawrence had been erroneously modeled. AuditoriulII Before .--1 uditorilllll .-!.fier