One of the oldest and largest nonprofit resident theatres in the US, Alley Theatre can trace its roots back to 1947, and currently stages productions spanning classics, bold new works and community programs that reach nearly 200,000 people annually across Houston. Already a long-time user of Clear-Com comms, the theatre has now adopted Clear-Com’s flagship Arcadia Central Station, integrating FreeSpeak II digital wireless beltpacks and HelixNet digital partyline systems.
Deployed across its two performance spaces – the 774-seat Hubbard Theatre and the 296-seat Neuhaus Theatre – this combination allows stage managers, board operators, technicians, and creative teams to remain seamlessly connected throughout Alley’s 75,000sq-ft Center for Theatre Production.
‘Clear-Com is absolutely essential to the way our team communicates,’ says Assistant Sound Director, Chandler Oppenheimer. ‘We use wireless beltpacks with Bluetooth integration for our FOH mixers, and rely on HelixNet to support our automation crews. Clear-Com provides the reliability and flexibility we need to produce theatre at the highest level.’
Alley’s system includes an Arcadia Central Station with Dante integration for backstage paging and archival recording, 20 FreeSpeak II wireless beltpacks and six transceiver antennae providing coverage across both theatres and extensive backstage areas and 20 HelixNet wired beltpacks and multiple remote stations for stage management and board operators, as well as loudspeaker stations deployed in offices and automation stations to extend communication beyond the stage
For a repertory theatre producing classics, world premieres and large-scale stagings in rotating repertory, flexibility is non-negotiable. Alley’s technical crew may configure a compact comms set-up for an intimate Neuhaus Theatre play one week, then expand the system to cover the 774-seat Hubbard Theatre with multiple operators on lights, sound, projections, fly rail and deck the next. FreeSpeak II’s robust wireless coverage helps crew members move freely across the 75,000sq-ft Meredith J Long Theatre Center without fear of losing connection.
‘The audience may never see the backstage choreography, but they absolutely feel the impact of a team that communicates with accuracy and trust,’ Oppenheimer notes.
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