Overhead Cable Rigging for Theater

The challenge I’m working on today is to devise a way to stretch 10 black sound blankets (about 5 feet by 6 feet each) across a 26 foot expanse to create a false ceiling over the top of the theater playing space. This is for the theater project I’m working on (Angels Fall, by Lanford Wilson – Produced by the Theater Forum in New York.)

The show takes place in a small Pueblo-style Catholic mission church on a Navajo reservation. The production takes place in a high ceilinged gothic style church in Manhattan. The space is very echoey and has enormous vaulted ceilings. The director wants to neutralize the space as much as possible to make the stage feel more simple and intimate.

Creating a Church Inside a Theater Inside a Church!

Our plan is to create a false fabric ceiling which will cut down on the echoes and visually drop the ceiling and mask the more ornate ceiling above.

The area being used for the show as at the back of the sanctuary, where the building is a little more simple. On both sides of the area are 3 large arches resting on top of 3 twelve foot tall columns. The tops of the columns are squared off with a small ledge and the columns are 8 feet apart.

We will essentially be creating a clothes line out of metal cable and threading the corners of the blankets onto it. Since the space between the columns is wider than the blankets, we can’t attach the wire directly to the columns or it will tear the blankets when we tighten the wire, and the first arch actually rests on the outer wall, so there is no column to wrap a cable around. So, we’ll make a little modification.

The Cable Rigging Plan for the Theater Ceiling

By resting metal struts on the outsides of the columns, I can attach eye bolts to the struts and hook the cable onto them. As the cables draw tight, the struts will pull tight against the columns. This will allow the blankets to be centered between the columns.

To tension the wire, I will connect one end to a 8 inch long eye bolt and then use a wrench to tighten the nut that connects the eye bolt to the strut. Each turn of the bolt will bring the eye closer to the strut and tighten the wire.

Once everything is rigged up, I’ll use heavy duty zip-ties to connect the blankets to the wires.

One More Wire Rigging Job

I’ll also be rigging a curtain on a wire at the back of the space, but this will connect directly to the column, so I’ll be using an eye-to-eye turnbuckle to take up the tension on that wire, but the principle is the same.Not counting the sound blankets, curtain, or labor, the material costs for all this rigging will come to a little over $100. Tomorrow I’ll be out trying to get some, or all of the materials donated – just part of the process in non-profit theater!

Here is the final setup for the false ceiling!

The Go-To Guy!