Company: Contemporary American Theatre Festival
Designer: Jesse Dreikosen
Role: Technical Director
The original design of the show, featured "dunes of sand" a scaffolding staircase, and an on stage pool that would be covered up by a platform until the finale of the show.
The pit in the theater needed to be dropped and had custom platforms under where the pool was to be in the event any water leaked through.
The deck was 24' feet in diameter and a perfect circle when it was all together.
Here's a sample of my drafting work, due to the unique nature of set pieces, I like to highlight any special details that I can to make sure that the fabricators have a full understanding of the goal. If at all possible I like to walk through the process with the people actually building the piece but if I can't I'll be as thorough as possible with my notes.
The center portion of the platform was 18'-6" long and 13' wide and needed to run an unsupported span of 6'-6" with no supports under where the pool was. I had to engineer it so I knew the platform could support multiple cast members stepping across at that span. The platform was also all on straight casters and had to track back at the end of the show to reveal the pool, to help keep the platform centered I installed some straight casters into the platforms on the side so even if it went crooked it wouldn't jam.
To keep the platform still during the performance I worked through many iterations for a braking system, ultimately I installed a stage break on the back end for the sole purpose of raising up the platform so blocks could be placed under it, keeping the weight off the wheels. During the show the platform also had to appear it was moving on its own so I left a hole in the wall behind it to string a rope with a carabiner through and attach to a hook hidden under the platform.
