Much Ado About Nothing

I was the Assistant Technical Director for Rhode Island College’s 2019 production of Much Ado About Nothing designed by Katryne Hecht.

My personal responsibilities in addition to general carpentry were the rigging of traveler tracks for the stained glass church windows, and the construction of the faux elevator. The faux elevator included sliding center split doors, a house door that could be swung in behind the main elevator doors, the rigging of multiple lights inside, and the construction of a traveler track that allowed a drop to be slid over the entire face of the elevator.

Pictured is the initial installation of the deck platforms, the staircase, and a mock up of the church windows done with flats and mounted on the traveler track.

Pictured here is the frame of the elevator.

The pipes running horizontally inside the elevator were used to rig a cuepix baton vertically which when programmed was used to simulate the movement of the elevator behind a metal grate.

Behind the elevator frame to the left is the frames for the stained glass church windows rigged to the traveler track.

In rigging the elevator doors I used Unistrut track as the base with trolleys to carry the doors. Due to the framing of the elevator itself the lines controlling the doors had to turn 90 degrees horizontally twice to get around the studs before they could turn 90 degrees vertically, as pictured here, to get to the ground block.

A sample video of the operation of the door can be seen by clicking on the picture.

Benedict standing in front of the closed elevator doors.

The doors of the elevator were constructed of a 1x4 frame and faced in luan. The peacock reliefs on the doors were made of joint compound.

After final bows the entire cast of Much Ado left the stage through the elevator.

The inside of the elevator was covered in grey velour. Slits were made in the velour to allow actors to enter and exit from backstage.