Figueres a Escena

The history of chairs in La Cate’s black box space

Few objects in a black-box theatre reveal its story as plainly as a chair. In La Cate’s black box space, seating has shifted between practical necessity, flexible stagecraft and a record of how the room serves community audiences. Its history was not established by a single opening ceremony; it developed through rehearsals, workshops, touring productions and the nightly work of moving furniture.

Figueres a Escena’s varied programme—from children’s theatre and dance to circus, cinema and opera—has repeatedly tested how this room can change. The same chair may face a stage in the morning, form a circle during an acting class and become scenery by evening. Those transformations offer a way to understand the venue’s cultural role without relying solely on dates or architectural descriptions.

A room shaped around flexibility

A black-box space begins with the principle that the room should remain adaptable. Movable seating, stackable chairs and simple platforms allow the audience to become part of the visual composition rather than remain fixed in one formal arrangement. La Cate’s black box follows this logic, with the furniture revealing the character of each production more clearly than a permanent auditorium would.

Early configurations prioritised function. Chairs were placed in straight rows or simple banks, creating an efficient relationship between performers and spectators. As the programme expanded, theatre workshops, children’s sessions and more experimental performances required different distances between stage and audience. The arrangement became a practical decision: the right chair position could turn a rehearsal room into a theatre, a classroom or a shared civic space.

The importance of these chairs is therefore not based on rare materials or elaborate craftsmanship. Their history lies in repetition. They were carried, labelled, stacked and returned many times, accumulating evidence of experimentation. Even when no detailed production record survives, a seating pattern can still reveal how the room was meant to be used.

From fixed rows to movable seating

The shift from fixed rows toward movable seating changed both performance and administration. Rows create a clear front and encourage a formal relationship between stage and audience. Clusters and arcs, by contrast, can place spectators within the action, support conversations and make workshops feel less like private classes conducted in front of an audience.

That flexibility also reflects practical realities familiar to Australian theatre workers. Melbourne’s intimate venues and Sydney’s suburban performance halls frequently move between straight rows, cabaret-style groups and completely clear floors. Australian box offices commonly use allocated seating, with front-of-house sometimes releasing “house seats” when a performance sells out. La Cate’s changing configurations belong to the same wider culture of making limited space work harder.

Artists also looked beyond the building when developing new configurations. Recorded performances helped teams see how chairs had been used to create aisles, levels and changing audience relationships. During international touring, this guide to Showbox with a VPN offers one practical way to manage region-dependent streaming access. For Australian designers and performers, such visual research can supplement knowledge gained in workshops and rehearsal rooms.

Chairs as tools of stagecraft

In a black box, chairs frequently cross the boundary between audience furniture and stage material. A row might represent passengers on a train, patients in a clinic, pupils in a classroom or workers around a table. Reusing familiar objects allows performers to establish place and status without elaborate scenery, which is especially valuable for small-scale productions and children’s shows.

ATEB’s theatre-school work strengthens this connection. Chairs become props during improvisations, obstacles in movement exercises and reference points for blocking. In dance and circus performances, they may be handled more dramatically, used for balance or arranged to suggest architecture. The chair’s meaning changes with the body using it, making it one of the black box’s most economical design elements.

Safety and accessibility are inseparable from that freedom of movement. A production note about the Craps back-wall incident shows how quickly an apparently simple placement decision can affect performers and scenery. In Australian venues, wheelchair spaces, companion seating and clear routes are now core audience expectations rather than optional refinements. The historical movement of chairs must therefore always be considered alongside safe bracing, unobstructed evacuation routes and comfortable access.

Practical choices for future seating

Looking after the collection has always required more than storing spare chairs. Staff need to know which seats belong together, which are intended for accessible positions and which can be placed on risers. Audiences in Australian regional cities may travel considerable distances for live performance, so clear information about step-free access and suitable seating can be as important as the artistic programme itself.

The venue’s history suggests several principles for future planning. These recommendations apply equally to council-funded neighbourhood theatres, independent venues and larger producing companies that use flexible spaces for workshops, rehearsals and public performances.

These measures protect more than furniture. They preserve the knowledge required to turn an empty room into a convincing theatrical environment without wasting money or excluding audience members.

Preserving a living seating history

The history of La Cate’s black box seating is best understood through relationships: between performer and spectator, between one programme and the next, and between architectural intention and everyday use. Chairs mark those relationships physically. Their scratches, labels, movement and changing configurations form an archive of decisions that may never have appeared in an official production file.

A compact comparison makes the progression visible:

Seating pattern Historical function Strength Limitation
Straight rows Establishing a clear stage and audience relationship Efficient, familiar and easy to manage Restricts intimacy and blocks some movement
Small clusters Supporting workshops, children’s work and interactive drama Encourages participation and eye contact Requires careful spacing and clearer labelling
Mixed levels Creating hierarchy, entrances and changing focus Adds depth without permanent scenery Increases reset time and accessibility demands
Chairs as scenery Building environments for dance, circus and theatre Fast, flexible and visually economical Requires close attention to handling and safety
Clear flexible floor Allowing complete reconfiguration of the room Supports the widest range of uses Depends on disciplined storage and reset procedures

The most valuable archive is therefore a combined one. It should connect chair inventories, floor plans, production photographs, technical notes and the recollections of people who worked in the room. An old seat without context is merely an object; connected to the performance it supported, it becomes evidence of how La Cate earned its reputation as a flexible cultural space.

Support this living history by booking a performance at Sala La Cate or Teatre El Jardí, bringing a group to an ATEB workshop or joining a community rehearsal and talk. Each use adds another layer to the room’s story while keeping its movable seats active, adaptable and welcoming.