Overhaul of Abbey seating takes centre stage

Abbey Theatre

The inside of the Abbey Theatre's main auditorium has been demolished. There were holes in the floor yesterday where the seats had been ripped out, the interior structure of the balcony was rudely exposed and there were metal frames all over the place. On the plus side, this was all good news. The public seating area of the national theatre's auditorium is being overhauled in a radical €730,000 plan to give the audience better "sight lines" of the stage and to create a better connection between audience and actors. However, it will also involve the loss of up to 136 seats. After Julius Caesar ended at the weekend, the builders moved in at midnight on St Patrick's Day to start the work, which will take about 10 days, before previews of Billy Roche's The Cavalcaders begin on April 10th. The reconfiguration of the theatre, whose acoustics and atmosphere have been criticised, is led by John Keogan of Keogan Architects, renowned theatre design consultant Jean-Guy Lecat and Tony Wakefield of the Abbey. The main contractor is London company Steeldeck.

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