The Keck Theater

In his Aug. 12 letter, architect Barton Myers claimed that his joint venture at the Center for the Performing Arts in Portland houses the first courtyard theater in the United States. He is correct. Named the Winningstad Showcase Theatre, it is an elegant interpretation of London’s Cottesloe at the National Theatre complex.

The courtyard form may be described as a stack of single-row galleries enveloping a flat floor that can be converted to tiered orchestra seating.

Peter Kamnitzer’s Keck Theater at Occidental College in Los Angeles shares a common parent with Portland, yet differs by combining this form with a full-sized proscenium “flytower.”

Therefore, as a courtyard-proscenium theater, the Keck more nearly favors the royal theaters of 18th-Century Europe, and Times writer Allan Parachini was not wrong in reporting a quote that referred to it as “the first theater of its type in the United States.”

ALAN FREEMAN

Chair, Department of Theater

Occidental College