Post by Queen Mab on Oct 11, 2010 14:13:20 GMT
Lovely story in The Stage regarding the new RST facilities!
blogs.thestage.co.uk/education/2010/10/congratulations-rsc-on-your-toilets/
Two years ago I celebrated World Toilet Day in this space by making a case for theatrical lavatorial education - aka for heavens sake get more ladies’ loos into theatres. I was, I said, convinced by the evidence in theatres and other performance venues, especially new ones, that most - male - designers have yet to understand the ‘sartorial and biological differences’ between men and women.
Let me spell it out, as I did then: penis-less women have to take down and pull up knickers, trousers, tights, skirts or whatever and seat themselves in an enclosed cubicle to urinate. It takes, on average, 60 seconds, as opposed to the male 35 seconds at a urinal. And all of that is before hand washing. So, I asked architects and co to note that you need almost twice as many facilities for women in a venue as for men if their needs are to be processed at the same rate.
Well someone was listening. There’s only a month or so before this year’s World Toilet Day (19 November) and also to the eagerly awaited opening of the re-built Shakespeare Theatre Stratford and guess what… it has no fewer than forty seven - yes FORTY SEVEN ladies’ lavatories.
That means, that assuming roughly 50% of the 1,000 strong audience is female, there is almost one loo for every ten women. Music to my ears, and I’m sure to those of any other woman who has ever queued a quarter of an hour or more for an interval pee in a theatre or concert hall.
By golly a lot of enlightened training must have gone on over the designers’ boards and in discussion with the RSC. It will make the theatre, on a lavatorial level at least, the most attractive in the country. And the shows might be good, too.
blogs.thestage.co.uk/education/2010/10/congratulations-rsc-on-your-toilets/
Two years ago I celebrated World Toilet Day in this space by making a case for theatrical lavatorial education - aka for heavens sake get more ladies’ loos into theatres. I was, I said, convinced by the evidence in theatres and other performance venues, especially new ones, that most - male - designers have yet to understand the ‘sartorial and biological differences’ between men and women.
Let me spell it out, as I did then: penis-less women have to take down and pull up knickers, trousers, tights, skirts or whatever and seat themselves in an enclosed cubicle to urinate. It takes, on average, 60 seconds, as opposed to the male 35 seconds at a urinal. And all of that is before hand washing. So, I asked architects and co to note that you need almost twice as many facilities for women in a venue as for men if their needs are to be processed at the same rate.
Well someone was listening. There’s only a month or so before this year’s World Toilet Day (19 November) and also to the eagerly awaited opening of the re-built Shakespeare Theatre Stratford and guess what… it has no fewer than forty seven - yes FORTY SEVEN ladies’ lavatories.
That means, that assuming roughly 50% of the 1,000 strong audience is female, there is almost one loo for every ten women. Music to my ears, and I’m sure to those of any other woman who has ever queued a quarter of an hour or more for an interval pee in a theatre or concert hall.
By golly a lot of enlightened training must have gone on over the designers’ boards and in discussion with the RSC. It will make the theatre, on a lavatorial level at least, the most attractive in the country. And the shows might be good, too.
