Here:    http://www.kenmark-inc.com/pages/packages/packages-peterpan.html - http://www.kenmark-inc.com/pages/packages/packages-peterpan.html

 

I would love to use them!  But they will take up 13 of my 26 fly lines, leaving no room for a fly rigging company such as Flying by Foy or zfx to bind my battens together to make a grid to support the kids.   So how do I do both?

 

My thought is to use my large, heavy-duty lighting catwalk that hangs 30 feet above the orchestra pit, just in front of the proscenium, (as seen in this photo, supporting the speaker arrays).  That way, the kids would fly over the apron, pit and front aisle of the house, while leaving the fly loft free for the rented drops.

 

 

 

It seems to me that this would be a very solid and sturdy way to hang their rigging.  But there is no wing space in front of the proscenium arch.  So where would I hide the "stage dad's" needed to run those fly lines?

 

Thanks, Dana

 

Rigging it out front is probably doable. The rig we got was in 2 sections. the front section involved a track that went a little beyond the width of the proscenium. That had a trolley that ran back and forth and a special geared pulley mechanism that allowed for the up and down to work consistently no matter where the Tolley is on the track. A pretty fancy machine.

 

The other rig was your basic pulleys and aircraft cable with a rope attached to make it possible to operate by hand. There were 3 of these simple rigs in a straight line. They all just go up and down. The center one is used when Peter flys in the window. That involves a "stage dad's" jumping off of a ladder to get the momentum going. This set will probably need to be back stage because of the window bit, but the fancy part might work fine out front. You would have to build a place to hide the "stage dad's" pulling the ropes. That might need to be as big as 8' x 8', but you should check with the Foy guy.

 

One "problem" with my theatre is that, (to save money during construction), they "dead hung" the loft blocks from the roof I-beams instead of installing a grid!  Argh...! 

 

I have a full-scale fly loft tower that is 66 feet high.  Yes, there are construction-style Genie lifts that can reach 66 feet high.  But I would rather not drive them onto the stage because I have a sprung dance floor that could get damaged.  The only way to repair fouled rigging is for a professional rigger to clip onto the aircraft cables with a 5-point harness and walk out on another batten that is lashed off tight!  I have seen a guy do it...and it's a real "butt pucker" ordeal.    Argh...!

 

So a crew like Foy or zfx would have to trim several of my battens at about 25 feet high and attach perpendicular pipes to create a lower gridwork.  This would be a major pain.  Besides, it would make it impossible to fly in my electrics, and as I mentioned, I would not be able to use all those "plum sexy" backdrops from Kenmark. 

 

So PLAN A would be to get Foy or another professional crew to dead-hang their gear from my proscenium catwalk...and then see if our "fly dad's" could hide inside my second-story box boom windows, (seen in the photo above, just in front of the speakers). 

 

Or PLAN B would be to convince the director to do the "flying" artistically, relying more on the audiences' imagination, instead of actually hanging our actors on wires.   I think the audience has the imagination to "buy it" if done correctly, but the idea would be a hard sell to my director.

 

We will see...

Thanks, Dana

 

 

 

 

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