WESTINGHOUSE THEATRE SWITCHBOARDS (1930)

Westinghouse manufactured stage switchboards up through the 1950's, and I trained on a Westinghouse board, equipped with Ward-Leonard resistance plates, at the Taft School in Connecticut. 


Westinghouse designed and manufactured at least two electronic boards soon after the publication of their 1930 catalog, which contained no boards of that type.

For the 1932 Center Theatre, demolished 1954 and smaller sister to the Radio City Music Hall, Westinghouse furnished a backstage board with five-scene preset and proportional mastering.  (General Electric supplied the five-scene board for the Music Hall, unique in that it was located not backstage, but directly downstage of the pit elevator).

For a contemporary technical description of that board, click here.

The still-standing 1931 Los Angeles Theatre (615 South Broadway LA) featured this sleek Westinghouse five-scene preset board with a Norman Bel Geddes look, the only art deco lightboard I've ever seen:

The above photos are courtesy Bill Counter, the maven of historic California palaces, and within his wonderful site, the Los Angeles Theatre (including backstage) can be seen here.

For a contemporary technical description of that board, click here.

The 1930 Westinghouse book includes photos of their boards in the Syracuse Loew's State; the West Coast in Oakland; the Grand Rapids Regent; the Rochester Keith's; the Keith in Huntington, West Virginia; the Waltham Mass Embassy; the Hoboken Stanley; the Loew's Richmond; and the Lynn Mass Auditorium.

So without further ado, the 1930 Westinghouse catalog: 













































October 2016