CPP3 Collaborations 2019

CPP3 Collaborations 2019

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Summary
Performance Dates 5th, 6th, 10th and 11th of December 2019
Performance Course BA Contemporary Performance Practice
Location RS2
Production Team
Production Manager Grahame Coyle
Stage Manager Madeline Hanton
Deputy Stage Manager Ruby Noble
Assistant Stage Manager Laura Martin
Stage Supervisor Darren Wilson
Lighting Designer Ross McCrone
Sound Operator Joe Connell

Overview

Technical Stage Department

This year’s CPP3 Collaborations brought forward a new challenge for the Technical Stage Department- creating a temporary venue in a rehearsal room. From the outset it was clear that some sort of structure would need to be built. The brand new self-climbing truss system was the perfect solution for this.

Details of the self climbing truss structure can be found here- Self Climbing Truss

Design Considerations

At the beginning of the production process, several designs of a structure that would suit the rehearsal room were created. The main design consisted of a grid of 9m x 7m with 2 central spans of truss using t pieces to join them to the grid. We found out that trying to make these two central spans fit into the grid was basically impossible, after countless hours of making up different variations of truss lengths, coupler types and corner types to try and make the structure work, we opted to make the two central spans longer and sit them on top of the grid and ratchet strap them. Although special sections of H30V can be sourced to fill the odd gaps created when trying to make this kind of structure we decided to avoid this and just go for the easy option as we had limited time and also communications with blacklight were slow so we wanted to make sure that all the kit we were hiring would arrive and didn’t want to make any last minute adjustments to the quote.

Due to most of the RCS truss stock being used on Cinderella and Christmas at The Conservatoire we had to hire all the truss from Blacklight.

One of the early designs had scaff cross bars in place between the truss spans, although they were ruled out as there was no need for all that extra hanging positions. If any special hanging positions were required individual cross bars could be put in place. This saved some money off the quote and also meant we weren’t rigging cross bars that wouldn’t be used.

The new MPT system came with 5.5m of truss for each tower so we were able to achieve a trim height of 5M. We found this height was perfect as it meant we could use a 16x5 border as the back black and also use 2m soft steels to safety the truss. We used the old 7x4 legs to mask off the wings and the 13x1 pit border as a front border as it was the perfect size drop. Truss borders were also used to mask the 2 central spans. Due to the length of the truss borders being 6m small sections of truss border were made up out of black tat to make up the 8m span.

For changing rooms we constructed a structure using tank traps and scaff, roughly around 6x2m giving two 3x2m changing rooms. Each room had 2 tables and 3 chairs.

The seating bank was designed to seat 50 people with a control position at the back. This worked really well for this size of room, it also left an appropriate fire path around the seating bank. We also stored several cases under the seating bank.

Future Considerations

After discussions with Grahame, we decided that on seeing this year’s groups use the space, the full playing space was never really used, or was only used because it was there. If the truss structure was to be reduced in size to 8m x 6m it would make more room in the wings and backstage changing areas and would only reduce the playing space by roughly 1m in depth. The playing space in width would remain the same as loosing that meter of truss would bring the MPT towers further out of the wings but they would still be covered by the front soft masking as we had about a half meter overspill of drape on stage either side this year.

If the truss structure was reduced in size the changing rooms could have been made slightly bigger and also would mean more room for storing flight cases and equipment.

Groups

Group A (These are the days my friends)

- White dance floor- 3 rolls all running upstage to downstage so they can be rolled back upstage and hidden under the full black.

- Projector screen- rigged off back truss.

- Flown piñata (to be lowered during the piece)

Group B (Diminuendo)

- White box structure (6x6m) Box Built out of 6m scaff with 3m legs, joined using Kee Clamps and tank traps used as feet.

- Audience sit inside the white box and video footage is projected onto the outside surfaces.

- White cloth material was sewn to fit the box by stage management.

Group C (In Bra-ra-ra-ra-asica…)

- Loads of cauliflowers and cauliflower constructed pieces that are individually flown in and out.

- Smashing of cauliflowers.