The Trip to Bountiful images
Bobby came in with a great idea for Act 3. The play needs an old, decrepit house that Carrie can disappear into. We had already planned to build a level about 18 inches high, and we were all dithering about how a crew of flyweights (our usual complement of stagehands) could erect a heavy doorframe, wall, window and sagging roof in just a few minutes, when Bobby said "overhead rails." So Marie turned over the engineering to him. At left you see him putting some last touches on the flying screen door.
The house won't have any walls, just the freestanding door and a window. When Carrie enters the house, she will simply duck behind a flat. Bobby constructed the door frame from ancient lumber, which has residual lead paint on it, so no one is to lick the door (or sand it). The first page of this series showed the track mounted up in the grid; the door and window hang from carriers that run on the track. By the time you read this Bobby will have added a collapsible, collapsing tin roof to the porch, also running on the overhead track and suspended by cables as the door and window are. Very very clever.
The porch itself is made up of two platform units, each consisting of a frame and a detachable plywood lid. The photo at right shows the downstage platform. Although the top is a single piece of plywood, the edge has already been made to look like the ends of a lot of 2x6 boards (and the surface will get a corresponding treatment too). Bobby's door glides in and attaches to the porch with a couple of steel pins. The only heavy lifting involves the frame and the lid, and that's why there are two separate platforms instead of one huge one, to keep the individual weight down.
"Stacking" these units required some thought. Town & Gown seldom puts up big multi-set shows, because we have almost no wing space where pieces can live when not in use. Everything in Bountiful either folds up or gets used more than once. The porch folds and will go behind a permanent wall. At right you see one of the frames—in a design called a "parallel"—mostly unfolded. We were ready to put in more legs, but everyone liked the way the ancient, weathered porch lurches and groans. The unit in the photo contains 18 ordinary door hinges, and while it isn't exactly easy to carry and set, it's a lot better than rigid frames or stock platforms plus fixed legs.
Standing behind the parallel is a lid, with cleats to make it come down in the right position every time. Along the top edge of the lid (but quite hard to make out) are about 10 little cuts of 1x6 lumber, which make the onstage edge look 1-1/2 inches thick instead of 3/4 inch.
Dialog between me and Bobby, after he brought in a busted rocking chair for the porch: (me) Bobby, a lot of people would not have kept that chair after it got broken so bad. (Bobby) I bought it this way.
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