Technical Design Solutions for Theatre

Jim Lile

A Flying Rig for Low-Ceiling Theaters

Like many theaters around the country, the stage at Iowa State University’s Fisher Theater has a relatively low ceiling and has neither a grid nor a loading gallery. Furthermore, though the proscenium opening is 18′-0″ tall, the first lineset (the highest of 20 single-purchase linesets) flies out to only 31′-0″. The design for the 1992 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor called for three 10′-0″ high by 16′-0″ wide flats to fly in and out during the show. To move out of sight, the flats had to fly 20′-0″; but to stay out of sight, the batten that carried them could travel only 10′-0″. Obviously, we’d need to use a double-purchase rig. Figure 1 illustrates the type of rig we used.

FIGURE