SM&W Contribution
Shen Milsom & Wilke (SM&W) consulted with SAR on the design and construction of the Leach Center for the Performing Arts on the Colorado Academy campus. Colorado Academy is a private Pre-K through 12 school founded in 1906. Colorado Academy boasts a long tradition of performing arts with special programs in aerial dance and circus performance but had outgrown its previous facility both in size and technical capability.
The new performing arts center is more than 21,000 SF sited on a 94-acre campus. The theater seats up to 500 people, with walkable catwalks, an orchestra pit, flexible thrust, motorized rigging, an accessible mid-house control booth, an anchoring system to support CA’s new vertical dance program, and high-end digital sound and lighting systems. Supporting spaces include a scene shop for the technical theater students, a black box recital space, dressing rooms, and classrooms.
The performing space includes:
- Flexible spaces for teaching and rehearsing, and performing
- Upgraded digital sound, lighting, and video equipment
- State-of-the-art acoustics and theatrical rigging system
- Improved backstage, dressing room, and technical theater workspaces
- Increased seating capacity