Shifting

Shifting Strategies:
  Wing and Drop
      * This system is still common in opera and ballet.
      * Shutters
      * Flown flats

These methods work for two dimensional scenery.
For 3D scenery, other methods are used.
Gripping: sending out hands to pick up and move scenery.

Flats are assembled into scenery using a variety of methods, 
depending on the nature of the show.

Assembling flat walls
Single set shows.
	Flats can be semi-permanently attaced to each other.

Battens and Stiffeners.
Stiffeners attached with backflap hinges.
BOX SET: resembles a box with one side removed.  
	Such a set naturally uses corner joints.

Corner attachment used varies with Angle.
	* From 90 degrees to about 45 dgrees, screws or nails used.
	* Flatter corners, hinges may be more successful.
Supported sets: self supporting corners, a set can hold itself up like a house of cards.
Long flat walls supported other ways.

Jacks and stage braces:
JACKS: triangular frames which are attached to the back of the flats, 
usually with hinges.
Anchored to the floor by a hinge, by a screw into a wooden, or with a weight 
	(stageweight or closed sandbag).

STAGE BRACES: adjustable boards with a hook at the top and a foot at the bottom.
	* Hook attached to a brace cleat on flat.
	* Foot attached to floor with stage screw. The brace then 
	  adjusted so that flat is vertical.

Scenery that shifts:
Mutiple sets require diffent assembly atrategiesTo be quickly assembled, 
yet secure.
Lashing:
	* Requires specialized stage hardware.
	* Rope used usually #8 cotton sash cord.
	* Lash eyes-
	* Lash cleats-
	* Tie-off cleat-
	* Stop cleat-

Alternate approaches:

Loose-pin hinges: hinges with removeable pins.

Roto-locks or coffin locks: Secured with 5/16" allen key.

Aircraft cable substituted for cord and the end securred 
with load binders to a ring or hook.

Two or three flats hinged together and folded for storage.
Two flats folded is a book flat.

Three flats folded is a three fold. 
Usually assembled with a tumbler or tumbling stile.

Stiffening book flats:
	* Standard stiffener made with loose-pin hinges.
	* Batten with single pivot bolt, rotated into place.
	* Batten hooks over toggles with batten dropped into the hook.

Wagons:
Scenery may be placed on castored platforms called wagons.
Wagon: standard platforms with castors attached.

Castors come in two forms:
Swivel and Rigid.
	* Rigid castors track in straight lines; MUST be parellel.
	* Swivel castors used when wagons don't track in straight lines.

Large platforms:
Assembled of 4x8 units & others.
	* Most common method:  bolting with carriage bolts.  
	  3/8" bolts most usual.
	* Rotolocks or coffin locks: used for road shows and when bottom is not 
	  accessible for assembly.

Shifting wagons:
How to get castored wagons to go where you want them: May be gripped, moved by
push poles, tracks.

Gripping:
grabbing the wagon and moving it manually. Best accomplished behind closed curtains.
"A Vista" shifts (in sight of the audience) require somewhat trickier techniques.

Tracked wagons.

V-Track

Knife-Slot:
Requires a deck with slots in it, and often installing a full deck over 
regular stage floor.

Moving wagons:

Range from manual operation to motors and winches using computer controlled 
automation.

Push poles:

Works best for smaller platforms.

Larger platforms require more elaborate arrangements.

Wagon Dogs

Slip stages

Huge wagons taking up large parts of the stage, which slide in from the wings 
or from upstage into position.  
Slipstages require similarly large offstage storage spaces.

Jackknife wagons
are a strategy used where there isn't enough room for slipstages. 
They pivot in on one corner.  Two may swing together to meet in the middle.

Turn Tables

Specalized platforms using rigid castors arranged around a fixed pivot.
Several scenes can be set up on them, and rotated into view in turn.

Turn tables drives:

Small tables can be turned manually.

Larger tables: 
      * Belt driven:
      * Motorized and cranked winch
      * Pressure wheel driven: Motorized
      * Gear driven.
  	      + Outside gear
  	      + Center hub gear
  	      + Ring gear

Seccuring Wagons:
	* Locking Castors
	* Pinned in place:  using various fence gate locks
		+ Barrel bolts.
		+ Cane bolts.
	* Wagon brakes.  Raise the wagon off the castors onto the brake.
		+ Must be adjusted to not raise the wagon too far so as not to tilt
              the set or lift it out of its track, but still provide enough 
              friction to hold.

Perioktoi
	* A very old method.  Ancient Greek theatre, consists of three flats 
        fastened at the corners and rotating around a center pivot.
	* A different scene is painted in each side
	* Scene changed by rotating the perioktoi to reveal a different scene.
        There was also a two sided version.

Perioktoi also the original special effect:  
	Mirrored periokoi spun to make "lightning".





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	This page maintained by:
	Mick Alderson

	alderson@uwosh.edu

	Last modified: Dec. 21, 2002


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