Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2019 - 50

17TH

BIENNIAL TECH EXPO
DISPLAY AND CATALOG

View of mounting under platform

Arrow in sprung position

Trick Arrow Trick Shots
By Kyle Spens, Graduate Student: Technical Production,
and Andrea Bullock, Properties Master,
PlayMakers Repertory Company

he PlayMakers Repertory 20182019 season opened with Ken
Ludwig's Sherwood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, directed by Jessie Austrian and designed by McKay
Coble. If there is one thing any Robin
Hood adaptation demands, it is archery. Sherwood brought us two
unique challenges: two arrows fired
into the deck that could then be removed and snapped, and an arrow
splitting another in twain.
We started the process with crafting the spring mechanisms that would
allow us to have arrows lay flat and
then quickly spring outward. After
some brainstorming, we settled on
standard mouse traps as our arrow
motivators. At 89 cents each, this was
an extremely budget-friendly option.
We removed the catches, leaving only
the spring and wire loop attached to
the wooden base. To make these
stand up to repeated use throughout
the show run, we replaced the wire
loops that held the spring and loop
to the wood with 3/8" eye screws.
We also needed a system to stop the
mouse trap with its wire loop perpen-

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

SUMMER 2019

dicular to the wooden base. This was
done with a simple zip tie attached to
the wire loop and wrapped to the back
of the mouse trap allowing only the
desired travel distance.
To allow the deck arrows to be
picked up and broken, we needed a
way to hold the arrows to the mouse
trap while not permanently attached.
We found that 3/8" OD copper tube
allowed the arrows to be held but
still be loose enough to be pulled out.
Being copper also allowed for brazing the pipe on to the wire loop of
the mouse trap. For the split arrow
rig, we followed the same process
but placed two of the spring mechanisms against each other on a board
in opposing directions, allowing the
arrows to meet in the center. The arrows were then permanently lashed
to the wire loop. The arrows were
crafted using ¼" dowel and partial feathers glued on as fletchings.
Bright color feathers were chosen to
help with visibility. The deck arrows
were built with fletchings on only two
sides to allow the slit in the deck to
be as narrow as possible. To create

our split arrow, we used a bandsaw to
divide it then soaked it in hot water,
bending it to create an obvious split.
Once we had working mechanisms,
we set about automating them. Each
mouse trap used a small pneumatic
cylinder to hold it open. When the cylinder retracted, the trap sprang shut
to its preset stop and the attached
arrow would snap into position. For
our deck arrows, the mouse trap was
mounted to a 2x4 cut to 45°. With
the mousetrap open, a cylinder was
mounted perpendicular at a height
to hold the arrow horizontal (see image above). A ½" wide groove was
routed into the deck above allowing
a 1/8" clearance on either side of the
arrow (see image above left). In testing, we found that the arrow would occasionally catch on the underside of
the deck. To prevent this, we mounted
guides to the sides of the groove, extending below the reset height of the
arrow. We also placed a bottom on the
guides. This prevented the tube from
being lowered too far while being reset and having the arrow slide out of
its copper sheath.
For our split arrow, we mounted the
traps and cylinders to the front face of
an elevated platform. In order to mask
the airlines, the cylinders were mounted with their openings upstage. We
then drilled through the platform and
fed the lines in from behind. A small
cloth was mounted in front of the end of
each arrow to mask the bright-colored
fletchings. It was not necessary to mask
the arrow shafts or cylinders as they
blended into the set.

Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2019

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