Anyone familiar with this show?  We're an elementary school for the arts, and we're staging this production at our local community theater at the end of May.  Our backstage crew will be third, fourth, and fifth graders, so we need a set that's durable but easily moved between scenes.  We've painted backdrops on canvas and hung them over PVC piping, but it was a little too cumbersome.  Any advice out there on what would be a good durable but lightweight fabric?  Thanks.

Susan, as a lightweight & cheap fabric would be calico, you can get this in large loom widths, however it can easily be joined, by using epoxy glues, if you can?t get a width to cover your space! The joint doesn?t have to be very wide & it is better to do it on the length edges & hang the join across the stage, rather then up & down. Having the joined seams hanging laterally will allow for expansion & normal stretching evenly, as having them up & down in panels, will cause the cloth to stretch with it?s own weight & pucker unevenly on the seams.

As for your head batten, PVC pipe is far to bendy, you need rigid wood, steel or Aluminum pipe head battens to do the job.

However for ?Honk? you don?t need painted backdrops for the scenes, it can be done just using a Cyclorama with representative set pieces &/or ground row, without changing the set for scenes, let the lighting do it!

I gather you would not have a Fly loft or minimal flying space over the stage? Therefor if you anchor a wire cable [stranded steal washing line] from each side, with a turnbuckle to tension it up [eyebolts, turnbuckles & cable fittings, are cheaply available at your Hardware shop] Then hang white 70% shadecloth to it & add a tail batten of just a steel water pipe or a length of wood, weighted down with sand bags or similar stage weights upstage of the cloth. [Shadecloth clips are good to use to hang it from the cable]. Once you have it stretched flat & secured at the head & tail! If you use simple ply wood & rope stretchers on either side to take out any wrinkles in the cloth!

This would be far simpler than backdrops!

The shadecloth being a woven fabric & available in up to 3.6 metre widths, would cover the height of the upstage area, running the length across stage. When light is applied to the downstage side of the cloth at an angle from Cyc lighting or from in front, it can?t be seen thru - when light comes up behind up stage of the cloth & the light level from the front is reduced, can the punters actually see thru it. [Known as Transformation cloth or Scrim]

The Cyclorama can be described as the line of infinity, horizon or as originally known as the sky cloth.

Unfortunately I don?t know your venue, so if you can post more info, I might be able to help you further - that is if this has been a help to you?