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The Black Hills Immersive Theater Camp centers on reha-bilitating the cultural heritage of the Black Hills Passion Play stage by framing the monument, occupying the landscape and engaging the audience. The design interventions across the site enhance each person’s experience with nature and make him or her more aware of the history on this site. The new architecture embedded into the landscape retains the historic view-shed while composing new discoveries of the historic stage. The approach of the tourist, camper and audience vary since each visitor seeks a different aspect of the stage.

The new order applied to the northern portion of the site implies but does not complete paths through the landscape. The paths meander through the site without overly specific bound-aries. The loosely formed open spaces around the cabins create semi-private gathering spaces for different camp groups. Some elements are embedded in the hillside, like the proposed amphi-theater seating. The audience enters at the top of the hill and then disperses into the grassy steps towards the stage. The three types of visitors discover the site along different ritual paths, discovering a rich cultural heritage that is preserved through the tangential programs on the site. ‘Reframing’ presumes that the original image is still there, the frame has just been mounted differently to relate to the next generation of visitors.

I began with the question: How can I make this a viable theater while maintaining the historic integrity of this site? Through research, several elements of the program, history, and interaction of this site with the local community came forward: the cultural heritage of the production as it relied on local volun-teers; the legacy of the Black Hills Passion Play as a culmination of the dreams and hard work of Joseph Meier; and the 70 year performance on this stage, telling the story of the life of Christ. In each of these values I saw the potential for different lenses of this site to reintroduce this stage to the next generation of audience, tourists and performers. For the audience, broadening the repertoire of productions. For the tourist, marking this as a cultural heritage site and highlighting the history and making of the Black Hills Passion Play. For performers, making this a site to attract the efforts of local and national talent and passing the role of the performer to immerse children in the experience. All three lenses need to coexist on the same site as individual elements while building from their tangential relationship. The overlap of these programs allows each visitor to experience the landscape of nature, the history of the site and the performance on the stage. The beauty and strength in this design relies on continuity across this site, that the movement of visitors across the site be as fluid as the actors across the panoramic stage.

Black Hills Immersive Theater Camp:

History, Landscape, & Performance

Katie Umenthum

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community is unique among all the tourist monuments and attractions of the Black Hills. Most tourist attractions spring up as gimmicks (Wall Drug, Reptile Gardens, and Cosmos Mystery Area) without any connection to the existing environment or history. Other monuments (Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse) began in the area because of the natural beauty of the landscape, carved into the granite hills and framed by the beautifully dark ponderosa pines of the Black Hills. As more tourists visit, these attractions grow into commercial enterprises and are divorced from the momentous dreams that made them. The Black Hills Passion Play, Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse were all the endeavors of visionary men in the early nineteenth century. These dreams came to fruition through hard work and a space large enough for their dreams to be fully realized.

As the ownership of the Black Hills Passion Play passes to a new generation there is a challenge to maintain the vernacular style that began the site. The original character of

the site shifted in the 1950s when the outdoor amphitheater needed to expand to accommodate a larger tourism industry. A national movement to “See America First” encouraged families to drive and discover this great country before they traveled to see Europe. The influx of tourists required new bathroom and seating facilities on site. Stepped concrete and stadium seats replaced the pine wood benches and gravel tiers on the hillside. The large audience continued through the 1980s then dwindled in the 1990s. The Passion Play performance carried through to 2008 then discontinued and became the Black Hills Amphitheater. From this long history I saw the greatest potential in relating this site to the time just before its greatest growth, the late 1940s. Several site conditions influenced my design response to the existing site: the history of this institution and its role in the community; the integral connection of the stage with the surrounding landscape; and the immersive performance on this panoramic stage wrapping around the audience.

Framing the SiteMy design frames the experience of entry for each demo-

graphic: Theater Audience, Tourists, Campers/Performers. To organize each of these rituals of entry, I am looking at conven-tional examples from other sources. The process of entering a theater or monument or church has a certain rhythm. By drawing small vignettes, I can look at crucial moments that prepare the visitor for the experience of the site. All paths eventually lead to the historic stage but the framing of the entry changes the perspective of the viewer: the audience experiences a theater through the box office, the tourists photograph a cultural heritage site through the museum, the campers perform through the backstage. The ritual may repeat hundreds of thousands of times, but each time is the first for the individual.

AudienceThis outdoor amphitheater housed the Black Hills Passion

Play from 1938 until 2008. The local and national significance of the Black Hills Passion Play make it a potential cultural heritage site on the National Registrar of Historic Places. The three lenses maintain the historic integrity of the site while enhancing qualities that originally inspired the Passion Play founder. In the interest of Spearfish’s cultural heritage, I believe there should always be a stage at this location for the potentially reoccurring production of the Passion Play.

For seventy years, the Black Hills Passion Play has been a destination for tourists driving through the Black Hills of South Dakota. It originated as a colloquial project by the actor, Joseph

Meier, from Lunen, Germany. Meier directed a version of the Passion Play that had been performed in Lunen for 350 years. He brought this tradition to America and settled his cast in Spearfish, bringing the attention of America to this small midwestern town. In 1938 a two-and-a-half block stage was built on the hillside from the efforts of the cast and the local community. The stage acts as a storyboard for the many different scene changes in the production. Rather than moving elements of the stage to create the illusion of different places in the story, each scene is posi-tioned along a line and the audience is given the task of orienting themselves towards the correct portion of the stage during the performance. The design of the stage, the location of entries and exits, the props and the costumes specifically accommodate this one performance of the Passion of Christ. They performed the play three times a week during the summer tourist season of the Black Hills.

The main performers were professional actors who played the same role each season. Local volunteers enlisted to fill the roles of the villagers and crowds. The added performers helped inhabit the two-and-a-half block stage and heightened the drama of important scenes by filling the amphitheater with their shouts and cheers. The volunteers could sign in at the beginning of each production as a member of a church or non-profit. They were then clothed in biblical attire and instructed where to enter and exit and when to shout their part. In return, the Play Company had a designated budget to donate money to the churches and non-profits whose members were involved in the production. The exchange between the Black Hills Passion Play and the local

Title image (clockwise starting at top): Cabins immersed in the landscape, Audience seating on hillside, Framing a view to the stageAbove: New amphitheater seating, stepped into the hillside for natural prairie grass to grow in and around the concrete seating. In the distance the new museum and tourist center can be seen.

Above: Panorama of historic stage from 1948Lower Image: Panorama of two-and-a-half block stage from 2013

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PerformanceInterpreting the movement of sound through light,

I chose to draw on the site model with light [see images at left]. The resulting diagram expresses the boundaries of the multiple stages. Each stage may be used along the procession of the panoramic path. The new performances can develop as a rotating theater or series of musical performances. One performer or scene could be set while another is performed, then the attention of the audience will shift to follow the sound of the next performance. The Immersive Theater Camp may have multiple ages of campers performing smaller skits on the site of a larger performance. To rehearse multiple performances during the days of camp, there are facsimile stages of the same dimensions as the historic stages scattered throughout the new theater camp. In the case of rain, rehearsal may continue on these covered stages. They are integrated into the new program of the camp to accommodate multiple uses. The main stage is a black box that opens to the main courtyard to accommodate both acting classes and a performance. Stage left is placed at the south end of the cafeteria for announcements or performances during dinner. Stage right sits between the cafeteria and the visitor center and museum of the theater. It may accommodate rehearsals and act as a presentation platform to address larger groups of tourists about the site.

Across the new theater camp, there are stages with the same footprint and staircases as the historic stage. These can act as practice or rehearsal stages or they can be for informal

Above: Light study of original Passion Play Production. Each scene of this performance progresses across a two-and-a-half-block stage. Only sound and motion orient the audience to the correct portion of the stage. Stage lights are only used in the last act, after nightfall.

Above (starting from top): Perspective of theater camp rehearsal stage from courtyard, stage left at the end of the cafeteria and a section cut through the main stage; Section cut through rehearsal stage right with monument center behind; Light study highlighting focus seating towards individual stage right, main stage and stage left.

performances during the week. They are covered so in the event of bad weather, the campers are still able to rehearse. These stages can be used for multiple programs since they coordinate with other large public areas on the site. The copy of the main stage opens to a courtyard do a vignette of this view. Stage left has a copy at one end of the cafeteria which can be used for

entertainment or announcements at dinners. (Image of this). Then the smaller stage right has an imitation stage tangent to the entrance to the monument center used for speaking or performing for tourists. The stage has an open back that frames Lookout Mountain behind it. The seating is embedded into the hillside above a tunnel that links the bathrooms to the cafeteria.

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built in bunk beds for the campers. The six large cabins share bathrooms and showers that are specified by gender. There are private cabins where the bathroom and shower are in the cabin for a smaller number of campers to share. Finally there are the apartment cabins with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and a small living room. These cabins can house artists in residents who would receive a grant or commission to live on site over the summer. The goal is to support local artists and writers, and bring in visiting artists and directors and actors to get nationally acclaimed talent into the Black Hills as a catalyst for the arts. This is already happening in small pockets of the Black hills, but not so much for theater as other artisan industries. This will bring talented people to the Black Hills, exposing young people to the world since most children in the area seldom travel to a city bigger than sixty thousand people. This could foster in them a love of the arts to visit and enjoy theater as adults, and inspire their dreams of acting.

Immersion in DesignAs much as the visitors immerse themselves with the history

of the site, so the architecture is embedded into the landscape. The new concrete walls and amphitheater seating slide into the hillside to sculpt spaces of inhabiting the land. Conversely, these forms loosely structure the surrounding hillside for paths and outdoor activities. The new design highlights the historic stage by framing approaches and melding itself into the surrounding landscape.

For the theater camp I chose to work with subterranean structures because of the opportunity to sculpt light and sound experiences within the ground without intruding on the view-shed. This was not done to simply avoid the historic structures. This is not to say visible design moved cannot enhance the historic value of a site. In this project however the visible elements needed to be well edited for the architecture to step back and the landscape to come forward. When entering the Black Hills,

the open spaces and nature are the prominent elements of the environment, contrary to the densely packed and paved city. In this program I have attempted to create moments of density similar to urban planning. But the interactions happen at a quite different scale and more open realm than within the city limits.

As time goes on, the green roofs and embedded foundations settle into the land. The walls morph from boundaries to guides, loosely identifying the tangential moments between landscape and conditioned rooms. The landscape slopes through and around the program to create incidents of nature. The sculpted landscape between the buildings is structured enough to guide a person through but incomplete enough to allow explora-tion. The incomplete components appear to emerge from the landscape without revealing a complete structure. The threshold creates tension that implies motion to compel the inhabitants to interact with the nature and history that surrounds them.

There are three types of cabins. The largest cabins have

Above (from top): North-South section looking West through cabins; East-West section looking North through two cabins

Above (from left): Cabin study model testing light conditions at night; Continuous path from cabins (background) through courtyard (middle-ground) to the amphitheater (foreground)

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Immersive PerformanceThe proposed design began with a sketch model of over-

lapping roof elements. The language of intervention evolved as layers of landscape and sliding dividers between programs. From interpreting these lines on the site, the new buildings developed as forms embedded in the landscape. The multiple programs on the site necessitate a concealment of new buildings from specific view-sheds of the tourists and audience. The site was origi-nally chosen for the idyllic hills surrounding the amphitheater that create a natural backdrop to the performance. The new program proposes an immersive theater camp. The design inter-ventions will interact with the landscape without disrupting the thin boundary between the viewer and the surrounding environ-ment. As a cultural heritage site, the landscape must retain the historic integrity and integrate nature with the theater experi-ence. In explorations I was able to define both subtle and direct boundaries between the following: private and public; performer and audience; interior and exterior; monumental and vernacular; and between landscape and architecture.

The original sketch model guided the placement of program across the site. By rotating and scaling the abstracted lines, I could test the relationship of a new complex order around the existing site and see how it respected or imposed on the historic stage. From these lines, I blocked in new program elements that reserved spaces between the buildings. These spaces preserved

the element of landscape filtering through the buildings until I could further explore the relationships at a later time. The plan began loosely in the way walls slide past one another to create bathrooms and roofs slide in and out of the hillside to make the buildings an extension of the site. With green roofs on every building, the roof plan masks the new addition and the aerial view remains the same.

Through constructed perspective the past project was rein-terpreted to develop the design language [see image below, left]. The plan lines only defined vertical places bounding interior and exterior spaces. After this the horizontal planes added interest and hierarchy across the façade. For the elevation drawing, the nuances of negative space between program space began to take form [see image below, right]. The design now treated interior, exterior and covered exterior places equally.

In the rehabilitation of the Black Hills Amphitheater, sound will directly orient the focus of the audience and campers in the site as much as visible design moves. To design with the landscape my modeling progressed through Rhino, SketchUp, chipboard models and finally a CNC routed foam topography. The final foam model expressed topographical nuances that showed how the buildings became embedded in the landscape. By photo-graphing these models, I was able to test the reaction of these forms to light. Sound reacts to surfaces in a way similar to light. Based on the material, sound hits a surface and either bounces off or is absorbed. It disperses similarly and the resonance within a space would be the equivalent of every surface having a highly polished sheen. The difference is that sound can be direct or indirect and we hear the indirect sound waves better than we see reflections from light.

BHA Program Plan

1 Main Stage 3,000+ Seats2 Stage Right 200 focused seats3 Stage Left 500 focused seats4 Museum & Gift Shop 800 sqft5 Amphitheater Seating 6 Changing Rooms 170 sqft7 Costume Shop 500 sqft8 Costume Storage 200 sqft9 Backstage Hospitality 700 sqft10 Scene Shop 1200 sqft11 Demolish Nursury 12 Demolish Box Office13 Tourist Museum 500 sqft14 Bathrooms 400 sqft15 Rehearsal St. Right 250 sqft16 Rehearsal St. Left 300 sqft17 Cafeteria 900 sqft18 Kitchen 400 sqft19 Kitchen Storage 200 sqft20 Rehearsal Main St. 500 sqft21 Visiting Artist Housing 1 Bed22 Visiting Artist Housing 2-4 Beds23 Visiting Artist Housing 4 Beds24 Long-Term Housing 8 Beds25 Long-Term Housing 2 Beds26 Long-Term Housing 4 Beds 27 Private Cabin 7 Beds28 Camper Housing 9 Beds29 Camper Housing 9 Beds30 Men’s Bathroom & Showers31 Women’s Bathroom & Showers32 Camper Housing 9 Beds33 Camper Housing 9 Beds34 Camper Housing 7 Beds35 Camper Housing 7 Beds36 Lower Parking37 Upper Parking

Existing Buildings to RemainRenovate/DemolishNew Proposal

Above: Site Plan with Program Key

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From Left: Constructed Perspective Facade Study; Transferring Plan into Elevation Study

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Above: Monument center for tourists to enter the theater through a gallery of historic photos and a framed view of the existing stage under a concrete relief image of the historic stage,

Above: Aerial view to amphitheater with backstage in the foregroundBelow: Entry to theater camp offices from upper parking lot

Monument In a shifting culture, a society based on change and updates

and the latest everything, the monument stands as a counter-point to our ‘running’ society. When approaching a monument in South Dakota there is a certain order to your experience. With Mt. Rushmore or Crazy House, the monument has an iconic form that can be seen from afar. This is the public face of the place; it fits on t-shirts, maps and the brochure. When approaching the monument to visit it, you must pay at the entry gate and continue to drive your car to a parking lot, all the while out of view of the monument, but within the designed realm that was intended to mold your experience and interpretation of the site. When you leave your car at Mt. Rushmore, the pillars of granite, formalistic flags, and gift shop speak to a national American language of ‘monument’. For Crazy Horse, you walk through Native American craft booths and a heritage center of artifacts and a video of the making of the mountain. In both situations, the architecture molds your experience for that first in-person view of the monument.

These are places seen by thousands upon thousands of tourists, yet people continue to travel, to see it with their own eyes. Their eyes do not gratify for the effort put into this trip; they are driven by the experience to either absorb the sensation of the place or conquer it with their own camera. As a designer, I intend to provoke thought for those who come to experience

the place. In this experience all the sounds, smells, tastes, sites and physical interaction with the site mold our memory of this place.

The Black Hills Immersive Theater Camp is an opportunity to commemorate the history of the Black Hills Passion Play by presenting it as a cultural heritage site. It will continue the tradition of involving the community and educating another generation of children in the stories of the Bible and expressing their beliefs. The theater reframes the audiences experience to bring them into a new performance and an intimate experience with the nature of the Black Hills. The amphitheater is necessary for the pride and rejuvenation of the city of Spearfish. Resiliency runs through this site in the natural conditions of the built envi-ronment and the steadfast care this stage has received through the founders, their family and volunteers from the community. The new design folds into the landscape and through time certain pieces will become more buried while others will be unearthed/revealed. This character relates back to the treatment of the site. These forms are arranged in a way to structure the landscape around them as much as the interior spaces. When visiting this site, no matter your role (audience, tourist or performer) your discovery of the site will engage you with the landscape, frame a view of the historic stage and immerse you in the performance of the biblical stories.

Selected BibliographyBender, Tom. “Building with a Soul.” Dialogues with the Living

Earth: New Ideas on the Spirit of Place from Designers, Architects, & Innovators, edited by James Swan & Roberta Swan. Illinois: Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, 1996.

Betsky, Aaron. Landscrapers: Building with the Land. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002.

Colomina Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994.

LaBelle, Brandon & Steve Roden, Eds. Site of Sounds: of Architecture & the Ear. California: Errant Bodies Press, 1999.

Roberts, Nicholas W. & Leo A Daly. Building Type Basics for Places of Worship. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004.

Ross-Bryant, Lynn. Pilgrimage to the National Parks: Religion and Nature in the United States. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Sheridan, Ted and Karen Van Lengen. “Hearing Architecture: Exploring the Aural Environment.” Journal of Architectural Education, PLACE: ACSA, Inc., 2003.

Thomspson, Emily. Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004.

Worthington, John & John Warren & Sue Taylor, eds. Context: New Buildings in Historic Settings. New York: Architectural Press, 1998.