The day started with quite a long travel (and with some hangovers) to Writers Theatre. The trip went a lot smoother than planned, so we arrived an hour early. This gave us the opportunity to have a coffee break (which some people really needed to wake up…). After our coffee break we met with Jon Farris, the managing director, atthe Theatre. Regina, a friend of Marjolijn, helped us arrange the tour because she works at the theatre and decided to join us for the tour as well. Jon explained all about the structure, building physics and architecture behind their building. The theatre started in an old library not too far from where the theatre is now, but after outgrowing their previous buildings two times, they decided to have a fundraising and built the building we visited today. The theatre looks very modern and has two theatre halls. The construction of the theatre consists of wood, precast concrete. The sidewalk around the auditorium has a very interesting wooden structure made out of small beams to hold it up. We visited the big theatre hall with 250 seats. It has an interesting panel system installed on the ceiling to make sure the sound on stage will always reach your ears. During construction of the theatre they used almost 80% of the materials of the old building. This was clearly visible in this theatre hall as well in the surrounding stone walls. The small theatre hall could entertain 100 people. Here they used two types of panels on opposites sides in the walls (a reflective and absorbing panel) to get good acoustics. After looking at the installations and the backstage area we ended the tour in the rehearsal room. The same panels were used as in the small theatre hall but alternately. The visit was very interesting and we enjoyed it very much.
After some free time where people went to the Target store or relaxed at a bar, we had a nice group dinner and went to a Baseball game of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. We watched the game with 37.333 local people, almost all dressed in the blue Cubs clothes so we were a bit underdressed (except for Ola). We participated in the dances, yells and even the wave, almost as enthusiastic as the American crowd around us. After 2 hours and 48 minutes and 3 homeruns, the Cubs won (2-14)!
After the game it was time to get back to the hostel. Of course, the train was pretty busy directly after the game, but when we finally got back to the hostel we enjoyed a quiet night.
– Written by Marjolijn en Margo –
