Sit down, John!
Theatre carpentry on the amateur and regional level takes a lot of shortcuts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care.
In the stage musical “1776” — which my wife and I saw recently at a local theatre — John Adams is told (several times) to sit down. However, he wasn’t told to be careful where he sat.
I’ve been involved in amateur and regional theatre for decades, and I’ve built my share of sets. In fact, aside from what I did in high school shop class, building sets were some of my earliest woodworking experiences. Without the one-two punch of shop class and theatre, I doubt I’d be a woodworking professional today.
But this type of theatre operates on a shoestring budget, and while the singing and acting is frequently top-notch, sets are often built by anyone who can swing a hammer. Theatre carpentry on the amateur and regional level takes a lot of shortcuts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care. It just means that if a faster, cheaper solution is safe, mostly invisible to the audience, and survives three weekends of performances, it’s the right solution.
While the sets are often gorgeously painted, the woodworking isn’t always elegant. But if the job is done unobtrusively, the audience rarely notices, especially in a dark theatre. There’s nothing wrong with that.
In the photo above, Mr. Adams is sitting on steps leading from the stage to the main floor, where some scenes take place. The original steps were about 4’ wide, but at some point the theatre must have needed them to fan out wider as they neared the floor. As the inset shows, they simply extended the steps on each side, securing the new lengths with a cleat underneath and additional vertical support.
No, that’s not textbook woodworking — especially with the cleats running across the grain instead of with it — but for the use it sees, it’s plenty strong enough to get the job done. We’ve attended this theatre regularly since we moved here nine years ago, and those steps have clearly stood (and, in this case, sat) the test of time.
Theatre goers buy tickets to be entertained, not to inspect the joinery. If the set is safe, convincing, and disappears into the production, the set builders have achieved their goal. Even if a woodworker in the front row can’t help noticing a couple cleats.
