A Frameless Turntable

Alys Holden

Turntables traditionally challenge theater technicians in several ways. Cutting circles out of 4×8 sheet goods is expensive: framing becomes a morass of angles: construction is slow and complicated: and turntables are difficult to modify for reuse. A production of Beaux’ Stratagem at the Yale Repertory Theatre called for a 20′-diameter turntable to be built as inexpensively as possible while minimizing deck height for front-row sightlines. We ended up with the frameless laminated-plywood turntable this article describes. This design offered several advantages over framed and laminated-plywood turntables: the segments we developed minimized plywood waste: the turntable could be easily recycled into any diameter ...

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