Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1993 - 52

On this shaft are mounred seyeral drums
\\'hich reel in and our the cable anached ro
the barren. All of this machinery is hung
ditecdy from the ceiling trusses. Bur instead
of the beam clamps dle plans specified, the
morots are held with a single bolt, several of
which were found ro be loose.
That's righe. There is no grid.
The shafts, Jccording ro drawings, wete
supposed ro be keyed inro the dtums. They
are weldcd. "[Jny of the shJfts are benr
from the crew and odlers walking on them
ro service the s\'stem. Not all of the drums
ha\'e an equal amounr of cable anached ro
them. Further, the cable is not well aligned
and has been known ro bind up within the
drum.
The drums themselves are stationary,
which forces the cable ro wrap onro the
drum at other than a 90-degree angle. This
causes extra noise and doesn't do the cable
much good either. Also, because the drums
are stationary, the linesets will shift horizontally up ro a foot between floor and grid as
the cable winds its wav across the drum.
The poor fleet angles have been corrected
somewhat by adjusting dle high ttim limits.
To adjust the limits, onc must climb ro
the lone catwalk that runs up and down
stage across the cenrer of the stage. You
climb through the railing and stand on the
trussing JUSt beside the catwalk. There vou
will find the housing for the limit switch
assembly: an electrical conract mounred on
a piece of plastic which moves along a screw
assembly unril it rouches another electrical
conract and srops the line see. To change the
limit, you moye the batten to where you
wanr the limit to be and manually adjust
the screw assembly unril the conracts rouch.
Given the speed of the linesets, this is a
lengthy process.
The limits are checked monrhly (schedule petmirring) as the~' do not stay in place
reliably Note that this applies only to the
ultimate high and low trim. There is no
way within the system to set temporar~'
trims. The limit switches are nor secured ro
the truss. If you adjust the trim roo high, dle
whole switch box will fall off.
The technical direcror speculated that
all the wire rope in dle building hJS experienced shock load. He wrote in an inrernal
memo:
The shock loads on the line sets and
structu re are of twO varieties. The
tlrst v'triet)' was caused by the failure
of the sub-contracror ro initiallv
instJll a Em acting brake-relay as pcr
the manufacturer's requiremenrs.
This was corrected more than a vear
aftcr it was brought to thc sub's
arrenriolJ. Second, the systcm and
structure ha\'e experienced shock
50

1993 FAll

TD&T

loads due ro line sets catching on
each other, or on electrical cables,
and then dropping.
The lack of a fast-acting brake was dle cause
of the eight-inch drop described at the
beginning of dlis srory. The contractor originally amibured this phenomenon to "operaror error." (How one achieves operaror
error with on-off toggle switches is beyond
the comprehension of anv of thc stafr) As
the TO indicated, however, it has been
fLxed.
The wire rope, narurally, runs down ro
the barten. Trimming is done with chains
dlat are unrated, moumed in a dlimble widl
a Nicopress fining. These chains have a double wrap around the batten pipe, using a
bolt with washers and nut to connect the
links. The end link is fastened widl a quicklink. There is nothing of known rated
capacity below the thimble. The TO has
several quick links that opened up under
loads filed in his desk drawer as evidence.
During an inspection, the staff found
everal Nicopress sleeves that were undercrimped. Several monrhs later, after the
Cenrer had purchased the necessary equipment, the stage crew went around checking
each Nicopress with a nogo gauge, recrimping when necessary. At least some
GO-70 percenr of them needed re-crimping.

Another feature of the rigging is the suspended orchestra shell. Borh the walls and
the ceiling of this shell ate mounred on linesets and are lowered in for assembly at five
feet per minute.
The ceiling lowers in four sections,
which are then tilted into place and locked
rogether. Once assembled, all four linesets
must fly out together. This is quite a feat
given the narure of the control panel (the
shell linesets, as menrioned, cannot be
grouped). To do this, most operators
require "The Panel tick," an eight-inch
piece of molding that the operator can line
up ro push the four toggles simultaneouslv.
The wall sections (four panels on each
side, and the back wall which moves as one
unit) lower in until the pegs on the bonom
can be inserted onto theit preset holes on
thc stage. An cxperienced operator can get
most of them ro do dlis, after a great deal of
grunring and swearing.
Each ceiling unit has 14 lights. ome of
the junction box covers are missing from
these lights. This is because several of them
fell off one day, burying themselves a quarter inch into thc stage. (They were held on
only by pressurc plates.) Fortunately, the
children's dancc troupe rehearsing at the
timc was far downstage t:lking critiques.

For monrhs the downstage left wall panel
had a disturbing habit of jetking whenever
it moved. One day it slipped dangerously
off its track. This occurred as the crew tried
to raise it our to accommodate an incoming
touring show. Halfway up, the lineset
jerked, made a terrible noise, and then the
left wall began swinging wildly above the
stage.
The TO had both of the 24-foot tall,
GOO-pound panels rom down before they
fell down unbidden. As this fiasco unfolded, the road crew for the rouring musical
was piling boxes in the scene shop (which
doubles as the loading dock) waiting for the
stage ro clear. Said the TO of the incidenr,
"It was nor a happy day ... "
(Oh, and by the way, the rigging in the
Cenrer's little theatre is of similar design
and in similar condition.)
The technical ditecror wrore pages and
pages of memos about the rigging system
and its numerous problems, nor JUSt ro his
employers, bur ro Lowest Bidder (the theatrical rigging firm), incoming user groups,
the technical staff, and anybody else he
thought applicable.
\X!hen asked, "\Vhat would you recommend ro TOs with similar problems)", he
said:
ever srop trying ro get it fixed! If
you bitch roo loud, you might lose
your job, but if someone dies, you
will lose your job. If a barren fall
and kills somebody, thell they wi/I get
it fixed. My goal is ro get it fixed
before that happens. I'll never srop
getting on them about this. They
could fire me-and that's always a
possibility-and I'd still be writing
them letters about ie.
An engineer who inspected the facility concluded in his report that the facility was useable under limited conditions unril repairs
could be made. He suggested dlat additional stagehands (besides the operaror) be on
deck ro observe the linesets whenever they
movc and that the stage itself be kept clear
whenever this happens. He also noted that
these problems would not have become
obvious (without inspection) for sevetal
yeats.

Almost everyone involved insisted that the
design itself is not the problem. ,\ lororized
rigging is used extensively across the country, and while it is loud and slow, it is generally unrtoublesome.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1993