# Low-budget high school theater discussions?



## DMahalko

(Heh, I just posted this to Community Theater Green Room -- Best community theater discussions on the Net! about an hour ago and was directed here as a possible alternative discussion forum. The post from there applies here, so here it is again...)


I am looking for some place to discuss the equipment and technology of low-budget high school theater/drama productions run on a shoestring. I assume this forum covers that sort of thing but I have no idea, so I suppose I should ask before I start posting here. 

I am the "Information Technology/MIS" "manager/network administrator/tech support person" for a tiny 400-student rural school district in northwest Wisconsin. I have "multiple hats" and one of those hats is trying to help out the high school theater program.

I have a number of theater projects and equipment I have been involved with that I would like to discuss somewhere on the 'net, with pictures and so forth, but I'm not interested in setting up a school-operated blog or forum of my own. Would it be okay for me to discuss these things on this forum?

- Dale Mahalko


It's a *Gymnatorium*. We have no dedicated auditorium space, and likely never will.





Stage risers, all temporary:



Sound and lighting, also all temporary. Set it up, tear it down *for each practice*:



DMX stage lighting is temporary. It is only up *2 months *out of the year:



I desperately want a catwalk near the ceiling along the back wall of the gym, but the school principal doesn't like the idea. So this is as high as the spot can go. Sigh.


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## Studio

better than what my old school had


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## wfor

Looks like you have decent lighting and sound equipment. Are those wireless receivers I see?

I would focus resources on getting some better lights and better rigging and max out that console with dimmers.

But I'm a lighting guy...


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## thatactorguy

Nice to see you have blacks in the wings. How many dimmers do you have, and what is their capacity? If the stage is typical gymnatorium size, I'll bet those eight PARs barely cover the stage, yet bleed like crazy at the same time, lol. Your board looks like it's a two scene preset, twelve channels each. If you have the budget, look into picking up about four ellipsoidals for specials and gobo effects. Also, about a month & a half ago, there was a discussion on here about cages to protect theatre lights in a gymnatorium setting. If you could get that done, it would save you the trouble of having to rehang them every year...


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## DMahalko

I see I need to add some additional details here. These photos are from about 2003.

The light rigging photo is just to show what we are working with. We actually have 3 banks of these, so 24 lamps total in 12 DMX channels.

The school doesn't own those DMX lights. They are on long-term loan to the school from a local community theater group known as the "Stacker City Players". 

The followspot on the scaffold was loaned from a nearby college theater, (I think from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire theater dept) for the week or two of the play.

The only thing the school did own in these images from 2003 were the risers in front of the stage, and the soundboard / wireless microphones.


So this is all very much a group effort, and each group alone would not be able to put on a good show with just their small pool of equipment.


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## MLPucci

thatactorguy said:


> Also, about a month & a half ago, there was a discussion on here about cages to protect theatre lights in a gymnatorium setting.



If you have yet to install the cages, see if you can tour some other places that have installed them, looking at what type they used and how they like them. The middle school in my town put up 12 circuits in the House, then caged them, and it took me a week to focus the lights as I could only reach, and focus, one at a time. Another problem is trying to hit the platforms they built to create an apron, after a certain angle, the bottom of the cages cut off the light!


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