Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1980 - 7

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Figure 1 How the Other Half Loves, model. Design by F. Silberstein.

and right and 2' upstage which is an angle of approximately
26% o. This angle was chosen to provide some possibility for
oblique mounting of doors and archways without creating serious sightline problems (Fig. 2B).
4) The thirty rough-cut plywood panels in two basic sizes
are grooved and stained to closely resemble the rough-cut reverse board and batten effect used in the permanent interior
decor of the theatre.
These are simply nailed in any required position to the
rough-cut wood facing of the rails with 6d finishing nails. By
using rough-cut surfaces for both the rails and panels, the 6d
nail holes remaining after strike are not apparent. Also, by facing the rails with rough-cut wood stained to match the other
surfaces, the rails themselves can be used a vista.

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Construction Details
Grid and Stanchions
The overhead grid consists of approximately 13' long sections of Binkley brand P-24 strut (dimensionally similar to P2000 Unistrut) which were shop drilled on precisely 12" centers. These are supported from the theatre's roof trusses and
from the adjacent lighting catwalk (Fig. 5). The height of the
strut was carefully shimmed so that no part of the floor to strut
distance varied more than ±%" from the design height of
20'8". Since the stanchions had a height of 20'6" excluding
pins this arrangement allowed the top stanchion pin to be engaged in the strut and then the entire stanchion could be lifted
over the 1" thick bottom locator plug and dropped in position
(Fig. 3). The bottom plugs were made a little loose, and chamfered to facilitate this.
This grid was painted a flat black to disappear into the overhead darkness. The stanchions were painted a medium brown
which related to other interior colors. A shade was chosen
that was also available in spray cans to simplify touch up.

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signed to allow the rails to butt into the stanchions rather than
overlap them, thus providing better appearance and greater
flexibility geometrically since, by this means, rail thickness
offset was eliminated (Fig. 4).
The rails were made in two lengths. Eighteen were made to
fit between stanchions mounted on 48" centers while the remainder were made to fit between stanchions on 53 2'.62" centers. The latter dimension corresponds to a diagonal of 4' left
USITI Winter, 1980

Rails, Rota-Locks and Adapters
Without question, the most technically demanding portion
of the project involved the rail assemblies and the method of
their attachment to the vertical pipe stanchions. The basic
problem was to devise a way to fasten the cross rails reliably
to the verticals at any height and at any horizontal angle without having to lap the cross rails behind or in front of the stanchions and without having to pass fastening hardware over
the end of the stanchion which would have made the entire
Theatre Design & Technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1980