A standard theater usually has about two loading docks. At the Royal Lemkes plant distribution center in Bleiswijk, the Orange Rental truck casually backed into dock 34 and it wasn’t even the last one. Right there, surrounded by sea containers and scissor lifts in a massive industrial hall, we built a complete temporary theater for the finale of Casa Cadanza On Tour.
The day was a study in contrasts. A children’s show in the morning, daytime talks, an evening Big Band, and a crew room built inside the board’s greenhouse. Producer Leontien Harsma arranged the catering flawlessly, and the Lemkes staff welcomed us with incredible warmth.
My primary focus was the set by stand-up comedian Berit Companjen, a performer who absolutely spares no one. Acoustically, a distribution hall is a reverb chamber; this one had about two to three seconds of decay. Orange Rental supplied an L’Acoustics Wide system with SB18 subs, which pushes a massive amount of air. To keep Berit’s rapid-fire jokes tight and intelligible, the trick was keeping the volume moderate. I heavily angled the top cabinets downward, ensuring the acoustic energy hit the audience area directly rather than bouncing off the concrete floor and steel walls.
An hour before showtime, the producer forwarded Berit’s intro tune via WhatsApp. It was a perfectly leveled .wav file at -16 LUFS. I downloaded the track to my phone and patched it into the PA using my trusted (and safe!) Sound Wire. Berit arrived without her technician or her QLab laptop, meaning we had to improvise a specific cue mid-show. We agreed I’d stay sharp around the 40-minute mark for her line: “en dan nemen we nu een minipauze” (and now we take a mini break). When she hit the phrase, I manually fired the lighting change and the music track while marshmallows were handed out to the crowd. It landed perfectly.
The turning point of the day for me was when the sold-out crowd entered. The moment people filled the cold, industrial set, the space came alive. What previously felt like an absurd location suddenly made sense and felt intimate. Berit later mentioned that the laughs mostly disappeared into the massive, high roof before reaching her on stage, completely unlike the acoustic feedback of a traditional theater ceiling. Luckily, her husband (who she referred to as her “manchauffeur”) was sitting in the audience and confirmed they were roaring with laughter.
We tore down the entire set that same night. The truck rolled out of dock 34, leaving the hall completely empty for the next morning’s plant distribution.