Technique behind the Theatre Organ part 3
Overview in a theatre or cinema.
Below you can see the setup in a theatre as it was (and as it still occurs today).
The console was originally set up so that the organist could see the screen. In many cinemas the console was not on the stage but beneath it on a lift. In the Asta theatre, the organ would rise up slowly in a twisting motion!
The illustration shows the organ positioned above the stalls. There are also many cinemas where the actual organ is set up below (as in Amsterdam’s Tuschinski theatre) or on either side of the stage floor. It is this technique that plays a hugely important, indispensable and sometimes literal link between what the organist plays and what the audience hears.
