That Wily Wyly, the “Giant Transformer”

In all the coverage of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s opening this week (and, remember, there’s a free open house Sunday), I’d yet to see anything showing just how the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre interior morphs from intimate to epic, its key selling point. Then I stumbled across this page from Theatre Projects Consultants, the Connecticut-based firm charged with actually designing the “versatile, multiform space that can be configured for up to 575 seats in proscenium, thrust, traverse, and flat floor arrangements.”

So happens, Theatre Projects hired Stewart Mayer to shoot some footage of the crew giving the theater a test-run two weeks ago. Mayer, the local cinematographer behind Kickass Camera, put together a remarkable time-lapse video; he and Theatre Projects were kind enough to let us offer it on Unfair Park. (Update: the high def version is included below Though this is a temp file — a high-def version is coming tonight. So, for now, enjoy this one, featuring our Friday-morning musical selection circa 1927, the Dallas String Band’s “Dallas Rag.”) Mayer tells Unfair Park about the shoot: “It was fantastic. The whole building is a giant Transformer. It’s bad-ass. It is absolutely amazing. It was really cool to see.” See for yourself.