Theatre Restoration

Originally opened in 1930, the Dundas Theatre in Nassau, The Bahamas is a celebrated home to encouraging and assisting the development of various cultural activities in the country. Over time the Dundas was in need of significant restoration and upgrade required to address its substantial functional deficiencies which made it inadequate to support newer performances. The upgrade required a change to sightlines, seating and flexibility in the delivery of the project to avoid impacting the operation of key annual events, specifically the annual Ringplay Show for orphaned children.

The brief required an upgrade of all facilities to integrate back of house production, catering, artist change and warm-up, theatre infrastructure and technologies, commercially supportive facilities, hire-out function spaces and a cafe. The refurbishment needed to respect the heritage value of the original structure while rejuvenating its cultural life as one of Nassau’s traditional venues. Apart from the original structure, there was significant work done on the building. The new work extends the original footprint, mainly in creating new upper stories. Major areas for refurbishment included replacing the roof damaged by hurricanes through the years, mould remediation, strengthening the foundation and refinishing all interior and exterior walls and replacing the stage and props. The entire ceiling was replaced with a new cladding system that improved acoustics in the theatre.

The work on this project was conducted so that the theatre remained open during most of the refurbishment.

1. How do you think the use of project management was able to facilitate this?

2. What processes would have been necessary before the start of the project?

3. Who would be the project stakeholders? 4. What was the project scope? 5. What were the project constraints? 6. What worked well to complete this project?