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Make a Revolving Stage 

A detailed description on how to make a large, people-powered revolving stage

for theaters

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

How to Make a Revolving Stage

How to Make A Revolving Stage

A human-powered turntable for low budget, low tech theater companies.

by eter !onopak, Allan Robins, and "ames #o$ciehowski

 

%ack in &ovember of '()( my friends Alan and "im, my wife, my son, and myson*s theater teacher+ director+ sister-a-dierent-set-of-parents and were all

sitting around the dinner table when sister announced it was her intention to

stage the %roadway version of es Miserables. /his surprised none of us,

because she has a penchant for doing big, no-%0 things. She said she wanted to

do the things right, complete with the famous barricade and revolving stage.

How, we wondered, was she to accomplish this1 23es2, she wondered, 2How are 

we going to do this12 And so it began.

 /he 4rst thing to do was to search the web and see what had already beendone. /his turned up precious little. am, however, indebted to the 5rama

5epartment at %HS in %urlington, #6 for the pictures of their turntable. t gave

us a good place to start.

#hat follows is the plan for making a si7teen foot diameter turntable, drive

mechanism, and ramp assembly.

8irst, the physical plant of the stage is 9: feet wide, with two-eight foot wings,

total width :9 feet.

 /he stage is ': feet wide from psychlorama to footlights. /he ;oor is hardwood

<nviolate= with a )+92 laminar covering. /he play needed three feet between the

turntable and the footlights. /he turntable must, perforce sit >& the stage, may

not be screwed to it, and be low enough that stage pieces may be easily rolled

on and o. Ramps would have to be designed to allow this.

At 4rst we thought we would be able to motori?e this thing, but looking at the

cost of motors strong enough to drive the table soon put that  idea out of our

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heads. #e needed to keep the cost of the turntable as low as possible, the

drama department has no budget@ all e7penses are paid with the proceeds of

previous plays.

>nce we told the director that she was limited to manually operated euipment,an idea which she was

ok with, we started working on the idea of $ust how it was going to turn.

 /he director wanted as large a disc as possibleB we settled on ): feet. /his gave

a few feet in front of the footlights for actors and a few feet behind for set pieces

and movement behind. t was also convenient because of the dimensions of

sheets of plywood, and simpli4ed construction.

%orrowing heavily from %urlington High SchoolCs design, we came up with the

followingB

Stage plot for es Mis D Sherman E. %urroughs HS

 A center piece of )+' < )F+G'Cs actually, nobody makes )+' plywood

anymore, chiseling cheapskates= cut into a four foot circle. n the very center,

screwed in from the bottom and glued to the top, is a )IJ '7I, with a

galvani?ed G+9 female pipe ;ange screwed onto it. A 9 inch galvani?ed nipple

was used a spindle, around which the table would turn.

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llus. A Kenter piece with spindle

&e7t we took )79 composite woodJ boards< &e7t time Cd use 5oug 4r= ) 7 9

and cut them : ft lengths. /hese would radiate out from the center at 9F degree

angles.

llus. % Spokes and Spider

  &e7t we connected each of the spokes with two stringers of more ) 7 9. >ne

stringer $oined the outside edge of all spokes together. /he other stringer was

placed G feet from the centerpiece. /he completed structure resembled a

spiderweb, and was duly christened so. #e reali?ed that the spiderweb would

adeuately support the circular turntable along the chords of the circle, but notat the circumference.

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#e secured :J spursJ to the midpoints of each of the outside stringers, which

would then give support to the circumference of the table. n hindsight we

decided that triangles would be better, as they would be less likely to be pulled

away from the stringer. < /his happened more than once, if the drive rope cameo the gears, we called it being casterated.

  llus. K Spider web with triangular stingers

  &e7t we attached L( , '-)+' swivel casters.

9 on the centerpiece, si7 on each spoke, one on each of the inner stringers

midpoint, two on the on the outside stringer euidistant from the midpoint, andone on each spur. #e donCt recommend using casters with locks.

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llus. 5 &ail plates at Spider $oints.

Each of the spokes and stringers was secured with G 7: nail plates.#e used G+9 coarse thread drywall screws. Also, for ease of reconstruction

every $oint was labelled.

Each spoke was given a letter, with each stringer given a number. Kare should

be taken to not set the screws too deep, as a stripped screw doesnCt hold as well

as one which isnCt.

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llus. E A better view of the spider and spindle

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llus. 8 &oteB we didn*t use the triangular spikers in the middle of each

stringer. advise 3> to use them.

 So spiderweb is constructed. &ow we construct the top. #e used )F+G'J

;akeboard rather than plywood. lywood is much stronger than ;akeboard, but

also much heavier and more e7pensive. /he ;akeboard bowed slightly at the

edges when there was a heavy load directly on them, but for the most part they

were strong enough. And with a manual drive, weight, particularly inertia is

something to consider. #e laid the sheets out in this pattern. /hen we put a

second layer on top of the 4rst, but the pattern was rotated L( degrees, that way

no $oints were identical from top layer to bottom, which greatly increased the

strength. Every $oint was covered with gaers tape. &o glue was used because

the director wanted to be able to tear the stage down and use it again. 

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llus. 0 /his shows Humpty cut out and $oints taped. %elow are the patterns

for setting out the lumber preparatory for cutting.

>S%

 

#e shot )2 coarse thread drywall screws through the top and into the bottom,

every screw was si7 inches from its nearest neighbor &>/EB because thematerial was )F+G' rather than half inch, we were forced to grind the top )+):

inch of every screw. /his was necessary because the screws were now too long,

and would protrude onto the roller surface. &e7t, we used a piece of pipe with a

nail through it and a sharpie at the other end, and set up a compass, and traced

a circle. A sabre saw was used to cut a ): foot, two ply disc. A G+9 inch hole was

drilled through the center point for the center spindle to 4t through. /he two

parts, base and top were christened Humpty and 5umpty.

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llus. H /his shows how the pieces overlaid oneanother. /his picture is actually

taken at tear down.

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llus. /his shot shows the two plys of wood, the lay of the rope in the cog, and

the cog itself.

n this picture you can see how the two plys 4t together. A piece of doweling was

stuck in the center ;ange, and with one strong thespian at every point of the

clock, Humpty was carefully lifted and laid on 5umpty, the dowel marking where

the center was. /he dowel was removed, and the spindle was inserted andscrewed into place. 6oila. /he table is complete. &ow we had to design the

manually powered gear drive.N Here is the complete table, with ramps. Humpty

looks scued, because this picture was taken after G weeks of rehearsals and I

shows.

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llus. " Kompleted table O ramps

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llus. ! PI feet of rope with notes O splices visible

  As mentioned earlier, powering this by mechanical means was out of the

uestion. So the $ob devolved to manual labor. #e decided to use )+' inch

cotton+poly multistrand rope. /he rope was knotted every foot originally, but we

revised that to every three feet. /he rope was spliced into one continuous loopby doubling the bitter ends into two small eyes, one of which was threaded

through the other, then wrapped with twine and taped. #e did not use eyes

because we wanted the splices to have a very low pro4le. /he rope had two

sides, a feedJ side, which was downstream from the guy pulling the rope, and

pullJ side, which was from wherever the point of friction was to the puller.

>n the circumference of the disk, humpty, we screwed every foot,

a cog made out of dadoed and beveled ' 7 9. Each piece was : inches long.

Each screw had a pilot hole to keep the wood from splitting when screwed into

the bottom of humpty.

 

Kog with rope cup, screw points, showing bevel

  #hen screwed in with the rope cupJ facing outboard, the bevel made the

rope cup cant upward, making it less likely for the rope to fall out of the cog.

>ne of the knots on the rope would catch the trailing edge of one of the cogs, the

point of friction, and the disk turned.

  /he number of casters made the whole stage relatively easy to turn. #hen

empty, a ): year old girl was able to turn it overspeed< G( -GF rpm=. #hen the

stage was loaded with the props for the barriacde scene for es Mis, and )9

actors of varying si?es it took a strong hand to move it at speed, which was one

full turn in about G( seconds.

  tensioners bind point

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#e soon discovered that the knots were getting bound in the cogs at the point

where the rope

left the disk. #e improvised a series of tensioners. Each was composed of a

cast iron wheel, which at some time might have held either a volleyball pole or a

lighting rig. /hey were threaded to ) )+'. So we placed them at three points on

the loop. /hey made it possible for one person to move the table without a

second person keeping proper tension on the feedJ

About this time you are asking yourselfJ How did you keep the puller out of

sightJ. n this theater there is a void behind the psych. #e were able to raise

the psych a foot or so, since it was behind

llus. %ackstage hub of tensioner assy. #e 55 screw this one lightly into the

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laminate ;ooring. /he tape shows the proper angle of attack for the rope out to

the stage.

a '( 7 9F foot canvas ;at, and unseen, that was no problem. 8ortunately, too,

the canvas ;at was ancient and we made a rent in it about : inches high. t was

through that tear that pull side was pulled behind the backdrop and psych, andthen fed back out to the table. /his is the space where the puller sat. 3ou can

see the pipe nipple with the rope around it.

llus. M /his is the heart of the tensioner assembly. /hese we did screw

lightly down into the laminar stage. #e were concerned about a trip ha?ard,

but we rehearsed with it enough that the actors got used to it, and the director

moved her blocking downstage from it.

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llus. & Another view. 3ou can see the two slits in the backdrop. #hen the

stage was lit for production you could see them, but only if you were looking for

them and knew where to look.

 /he very last part of the stage were the ramps. /hey were made of ' 7 : 7 :

foot which were ripped diagonally, and then had two layers of ;ake board

screwed to them. /he leading edges of the ramps were sanded as close to ;ush

as we could make them, to allow large set pieces to be wheeled onto them.

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llus. > /he leading edge of the ramp.

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llus. nside front view of the ramps.

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llus. Q /he Ramp and Stage meet. /he tape was there to let the

Stage manager see when the table was set to its optimum

positi

on.

 /hey were also cut on the trailing edges to 4t as closely as possible to match the

arc of the stage. /here had to be a gap of about )+' between the ramps and

the stage , that was unavoidable, due to the imprecision of the cutting of the

ramps and Humpty. /he techies knew to get a good head of steam up the ramp

with set pieces, and all worked out.

 "ust as an aside, the thing worked $ust 4ne And it has been taken down and is

being stored, ready for use again.

SuppliesB '9 sheets of 97I G)+G'2 ;akeboard.  )'I lf )79 pine or 5oug 4r

  L: ' )+' non-locking, swivel casters

  I '7 : 7 I* pine or 5oug 4r

  ) sheet G)+G' plywood ac

  G' 9 7 :2 nail plates

F )2 drywall screws

  gaers tape

  paint

 /otal cost D T L(( < '()(=

So there you have it. My friends and hope this will help you. #hat you do to

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this will be of more than passing interest to us all.

eter !onopak

 /heater 5ad for %urroughs High School 5rama 5epartment

Ridgecrest, KA

osted by /heater 5ad at )B)G M 

Email /his%log/hisShare to /witterShare to 8acebookShare to interest

5 comments:

).

RonSe! &ovember G, '()) at :B9I AM

 /hank you so much for sharing this am a playwright and have been looking

for a low budget way to build a rotating stage <to no avail=. will study what you

have posted. >ne uestion, how long did it take to build it1

Reply

'.

"low March 'L, '()' at IB9P M

really appreciate you taking the time to post this. would like to make some

comments and uestions, if could. 8irst of all, great undertaking. /his really

looked like it was a fun build. uestion, however, your use of >S% - >riented

Strand %oard <what you refer to as 2;akeboard2=. &ot only it is &>/ lighter than

its euivalent in plywood, as you claim, but it is not something that really it

strong enough for multiple uses. Screws pull through it MKH easier than ply and

when it begins to fail...it $ust falls apart. Kheaper, /HA/ it is...and if this was a

budgetary concern don*t blame you in the least. '9 sheets at TI is much betterthan '9 sheets at T'(. >n a practical side, >S% swells a little with age. f this, or

anything else made of >S%, were stored for a few years and were e7posed to any

level of humidity it would be practically unusable when you got around to it

again. >ther than cost plywood is the superior building choice on almost all

levels.

 3ou never cover what the actual drive mechanism was, other than it being

manual. #as it simply someone pulling the rope1 s that what the knots are for1

f so how did you keep tension1 How easy was it to move when you were all

done1 How many people did it take1 Here is the main uestion. After you 4nished

it, what did you think to yourself that you would do dierently if you had to build

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another one. Again, thanks for your time in putting all of this together. <>h, btw,

it is spelled 2cyc2 not 2psych.2 t is short for 2cyclorama.2=

>h, one more thing. f you were to do this again you might consider 47ed <or

2dumb2= casters instead of the swivel kind. 3ou would have to mount them

perpendicular to the radius of the circle as you went around. &ot only are theymuch cheaper than the 2smart2 castors you wouldn*t have any issues with

swiveling the smart casters if you decided to rotate the state the opposite way.

Reply

G.

#at May ), '()9 at IB'G AM

 /hanks for the design dont know if you still get comments from this site so *ll

try to track you down...but see what we did with your plans...httpB++pats-

addition.blogspot.com+'()9+(F+dont-reinventadapt.html...at /K #illiams HS

<Remember the /itans= Ale7andria 6irginia.

Reply

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9.

Hailey Jon  "une )', '()9 at )BF' AM

 /his post focuses on a general strategy for designing and building a sturdy

rotating revolving platforms which turns easily with a heavy load.

Reply

F.

 Julie Mye!s >ctober ', '()9 at 9B'9 M

have a performing group that goes to dierent schools to put on plays, and we

perform on a portable stage. think that if we had a revolving piece then it could

add some great eects to our plays. 5o you think this would be possible on a

portable stage platform1

httpB++www.thestagedepot.com+portableUstagesUforUsaleUs+G.htm

Reply

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