I have successfully survived my first year of running a theater company ( we perform mostly Shakespeare).  We set up in three different venues last summer and will double our schedule this year....to get to the point: I built a wall and stretched a backdrop over it..that was all.  This year I want to be able to roll several backdrops up and down.  The span I am looking for is 16' and the height about 9'.  I keep picturing two A-frames on each end with a bar ( pipe?  wood?) suspended between them and clothesline pulleys or weighted drops or whatever.  I lay awake at night trying to design this... a semi-portable support system for small back drops.  I know that someone out there has already figured this out.  Any ideas?

 Just something to keep in mind. They wwill be (or can be) quite heavy. Whatever you use to support it needs to be able to take the weight. We have one (a very bad one) that the pipe is bending and we've had a rope break occasionally. Much of that might be duw to age, still sometihng to keep in mind.

I know ther are roll drops that can be used (in a theater with no fly system) I don't have any deatils on those though

Maybe not quite the advice you were looking for, but just knowing what doesn't work might save you from problems down the road.

Good luck

Thanks for all of this advice.  The 16' span is the first hurdle.  I have found electrical conduit that is very stiff ( much more rigid than standard PVC pipe) and much, much lighter than steel rods.  The electric conduit ( used to run wires under concrete slabs) comes in ten foot lengths and joins together quite easily with the old "male"/"female" ends.  If a 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 is inserted into the length of pipe I think it would stay stiff enough to not sag during a two-three hour performance.  The back drops that I paint are not heavy canvas but an artists  canvas.  I paint them in three sections of 54" wide by about 108 " tall.  The fabric is quite light...I can hold all three sections easily under one arm.....they can't weigh more than 25-30 lbs. 

So...now I have a 16'  long "rod" with the three drops held to the pipe with battens...if I hold up each end of the rod at the top of a triangle or A-Frame all I have to do is figure out how to turn the rod.

I actually keep thinking of something like a bicycle tire and I can just grab the spokes and spin.....but then I have to remember that the bicycle tire will be 9' 0" (min.) in the air and there is usually no place for a step ladder.  I need to get a pulley system to be worked from floor level.

You see....sometimes this "back-drop" is all we have.....we do open air work in vineyards and parks and the back-drop stands on risers.  I think I can cover the A frames on each side with panels and also brace the A frames across the stage to each other and cover that ( like a soffit).  The "arch" across the top and the panels on each side would cover the ugly workings of the mechanics of the backdrops.

Am I babbling?

I have a pick-up truck that I can transport 16" lengths of anything so that is no problem ( although sometimes the stairs up and into old music halls and theaters can be a challenge.)

I have played with roll-down window blinds but I am wary of them....they also take a larger backstage crew to get them all changed at the same time.  In true Shakespearean fashion we are always playing four different roles, dashing back and forth with props and lights in mad jugglers fashion.  If I can design this wall to be operated by one person our performances will greatly improve ( or at least there will be less mayhem backstage).

What about having the backdrops rolled up on the stage ( behind a toe-kick of some sort) and cranking them up into position instead of lowering them?  Is there an advantage to this?  I am playing with pulleys (being an artist I am mechanically challenged) and can't figure out how to attach the pulley to the rod that holds the drop.  I keep sketching sort of "Fred Flintstone" wooden pulleys wheels that can actually be screwed to the 2 x 4 inside the conduit.  Two circles cut out of plywood with a block between them.  Put sandpaper on the block so the rope doesn't slip....screw the wheel to the 2 x 4...the whole thing turns and now all I have to do is keep it 9' in the air while this happens.

Am I re-inventing something that everyone else already knows how to build?  How do other theater companies do this? 

Now that you explain it I have a set of bamboo blinds that operate exactly like you describe.....simple but they jam up all the time.  I think I have seen old tumblers like you describe....in the back of an old theater...now I understand what they were.  I have also seen a similar arrangement in an old windmill - the battens acting as a thresher as the drum was turned.  I like the idea of electic spools for the pulleys..I'll see if I can't snag a few.

Thanks for your feedback....I wonder what type of backdrops were used in the Shakespearean era....I bet they hung them on ropes and didn't change them much.  Everything I read on this era of theater describes the Globe Theater in stifling detail but I am sure ( just like us) there were a lot of great plays put on in vineyards, barns, and churches ( well maybe not churches back then)

 I watched the movie "Rosencrantz and Guidenstern are Dead" and the players in that did just what you described..with their wagon.  Also their performance used almost no props but I liked when the actors themselves made the ship and the water and found it interesting that the sword fights were pantomine with a cast member in the wings clattering two swords together.  The sword fights that my "boys" stage scare the wits out of me.

Thanks again for all of the ideas.....I'll be back with details of the final construction....

I would suggest engineered lumber I-Beams for the frame work.  You can get wonderful lengths, and the weight is really manageable.

Also, you are on the right track with the bicycle wheel idea, but you will need one at the bottom as well.

Another low-tech approach to consider is the periactoy, a three sided "flat" that is usually on casters. Lining up a few (3?) of them could easily cover 16 feet of width. They consume a lot of space, but you don't have to deal with the rigging each time. You can paint to your heart's content on a hard surface, and you have the option of three scenes that can be rotated into position quite quickly.

I gave up on rolling in flats as you suggest a while ago. Drops that have been painted more than once tend to get serious wrinkles in them, destroying the illusion.

Once again I have learned something useful!  I have never heard of a "periactoy"  but the concept seems simple, sound and approachable by a fumbler like me.  Some of the theaters we work in have very shallow stages.....12' or so.  They are old converted music halls.  Depth of the set is always a problem.  I was thinking along the lines of a two sided wooden "flat" that rotated on center pins top and bottom and drops could be mounted on the back side, turned at the scene change and then the other side could be changed.  I actually tried to build this last spring and ran out of time before the season started.  It may take shape this winter but I am going to try rolling drops first. 

I never paint over my drops.  They are general for Shakespeare..you know, street, interior, tomb, church, feast etc. I am building a library of them and by making them actually in three panels  they can mix and match from play to play.  Of course, now that I have Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Taming of the Shrew covered the cast wants to do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf this spring.  I really can't work in this century at all.  They're getting black curtains. 

The concept comes from ancient Greece. I have never seen it spelled that way before. I am sure, however, that the way I spelled it is an horrible "Americanization" of the proper spelling, and I stand corrected!

I have used three of them to great effect in a performance where one of the sides had a snug fitting door in it, and after the pieces rotated a few times (all in unison, timed to the music) the doors opened, and the actor/technicians who had been hiding inside hopped out and did a musical number. I don't have photos from that production, but the following link shows photos of a show I did where there was a single periactoi that was used to great effect.

http://members.aol.com/bmiller025/ThreeHotels.htm - http://members.aol.com/bmiller025/ThreeHotels.htm

The play takes place in three different hotel rooms - in Morocco, in the Caribbean, and finally, in Oaxaca, Mexico. The Periactoi served as a window in each of the three rooms. I was able to light each of the windows in distinctive, very different ways, to help create each of the scenes.

Joan, a few years ago, I did a professional production of The Phantom where they built these very ornate, beautifully-made rotating steel framed flats that spun around (maybe 3' x 8', and had interchangeable panels which could be changed from behind during scenes. It didn't work too well. The walls wiggled when the panels were changed, and it was very hard to prevent the walls from inadvertently rotating when they were being changed. A big distraction. Very cool concept, but it was too hard to pull off.

Use the idea of the rolling blind...

Dear Joan,

     I was on this site looking for info when I saw your post. We have successfully used a large format pipe and drape system for several years. We sew the 108 widths together to creat 18 by 40 ft backdrops then hang on the frame supported by adjustable poles. It is labor intensive at first but I can give you more info if you are interested because this is the closet thing we had until we got a theatre with a fly loft.

Hi Melanie.....any more info you want to offer is great.  Right now the drops are stapled to the wall of the barn.....I have until June to figure out how to hang them. They are 16' wide and 8'tall...certainly not as big as yours but our theater is quite small too.  Our total ceiling height is 11 '.  I was thinking of hanging the drops up off of the stage..sort of centering them in the 11' space.  They are not very heavy but I still need to span at least 18' to 20' with a pipe or wire for them to hang from.  There are four of them for each play and they  must be changed fairly frequently. Although I don't look forward to it I think I am going to set grommets in the top of each drop...maybe 12-16" apart so that I can lace them into rings that slide on the pipe...or maybe put rings straight thru the grommets.....I don't know...I am sort of avoiding the issue by working on the costumes and building sets for "Virginia Woolf" which opens next week.  But I know that June will be here very soon and I don't want to be standing on the stage with a pile of canvass and no clue.   Any help would be appreciated.   Joan