Hi there, I'm new to this forum so I thought I would kick off by asking a question that has had be baffled the last week. I just started a "Professional" Community Theater in my area and we have just chosen our first season of shows.

However, the Theater in which we are working in has no fly space, and very small side wings. Dimensions are: STAGE (w/i Proscenium) 33' W x 16.9' D. Left Wing - 13.8' W x 18' D, Right Wing - 15.9' W x 18' D. The Proscenium is around 16 - 18 feet tall, and there is only about 5 feet available above the stage.

Anyway, we are trying to find a way to rig our backdrops so that we can move them with minimal effort, but I can't figure out how best to do it. We can't fly them up, the L & R wings are not big enough to split the backdrops in half and just wheel them in together from either side.

We had an idea of using some kind of flexible material to paint the backdrops and then role them up on a cylinder above the stag and have small motor that will unroll them and role them back up again... Think of a motorized version of the Projector screens they use in school, only much large (35' Wide, 18' Tall). However, then we have the issue of cost involved, as well as the fear that constant rolling will severely crack the paint the first few times it's used....

Does anyone here have any suggestions on how we could move our 18' x 35' backdrops in and out of stage?

We actually have the ability to use another Theater, which has a 100' W x 40' D Stage, with a Proscenium opening of 59.6' W x 40' D and 24' Tall. and a fully rigged 30' Fly space. However, the want a minimum of $3,350 per day ($1,600 or 10% daily rental fee) + $1,750 Per Performance. One of the advantages is that it can seat up to 3,150 people instead of 561 like the theater we have plan to use right now. My concern is not the excess money with the other Theater, because making that money back should not be a problem with the extra seating capacity (More seating + High Ticket Price's). However, we don't want to have to pay license fee's for 3150 seats if they don't all fill up. AND also the fact that the Theater is located on the Indiana University Campus and the closest parking garage's are 5 blocks away. That theater only supplies free bus service to and from the Theater on event's they sponsor!

So if we used this other Theater, we would need to probably pay an additional $1,800 per performance to run a free shuttle service from the parking garages to the Theater.

At this point we just don't know which way to go... Any suggestions for us?

PS) Another issue we have is that we will be touring the production to other Theater's in Indiana, some of which don't have a fly space as well. So even if we did use the bigger Theater here, we are stuck working within the constraints of smaller Theater's elsewhere.

Thanks everyone!

We decided today to go with  the large Theater that comes equipped with a Fly Tower. In the end, it pays off better for us.