# Once Upon a Mattress Bed Suggestions



## jdartfan (May 7, 2013)

I'm the set designer/prop master/stage manager for an upcoming community theatre production of "Once Upon a Mattress". Obviously, one of the key pieces for the set is a bed with a stack of mattresses. Some of the creative heads have implied that they want a full sized, movable, fairly tall bed. First, I'm concerned with safety...would the actress use a ladder? Would the bed have brakes? Is there a system to prevent her from falling off? Then there are the space issues. The show is going to be in church gymnasium that also has a small proscenium stage. The wings are virtually non-existant (maybe a couple feet wide), so I'm having trouble visualizing where this thing is going to go. Any help would be immensely appreciated.


----------



## masterelectrician2112 (May 7, 2013)

Hello,

I was involved with a performance of Once Upon a Mattress a few years ago. We made a heavily braced 4'x8'x8' tall wagon that had stage brakes. Make sure you check your sight lines to see if this height would work for you. As a gag, we had two actors bring out a ladder for the princess to get into the bed, and we had no problems with the safety of the height. We left the back unfaced to hide the things in the bed and then we faced the other three sides with lauan and made it look like individual mattresses with fabric. I hope this helps you!

EDIT: Just saw the part about non-existent wingspace. You could leave it onstage the whole time and use it for other scenic elements by hanging something on or in front of it. Good luck!


----------



## chausman (May 8, 2013)

You could get creative with the staging and only paint/decorate two sides, with the others some other set piece. Then when you need the bed, you angle the two mattress faces toward the audience. When you don't need/want the bed, angle the other two faces toward the audience, or move the bed to a corner where the mattress sides weren't visible.


----------



## Chilimac (May 9, 2013)

The problem with wagon breaks is often that people think they can do more than the can. They don't always stop all movement: usually they just discourage movement of the wagon.

You could build the mattress pile on top of a lift-jack wagon (pictured here). When the lever that sticks out the back of the wagon is in the bottom right of the L-shaped notch, it pushes the casters down, lifting the wagon off the deck and allowing you to move it. When you have the wagon on spike, you kick the lever out of the little notch, allowing the lever to pop up to the top of the L-shaped notch, which allows the weight of the wagon to push the hinged caster-frames up, allowing the wagon to settle on the ground.

The caveat here is: the wagon frame usually can't be built out of 2x6, as the fold-up action of the hinged caster frames pulls the two aide walls slightly together.


----------



## masterelectrician2112 (May 9, 2013)

If money is there and technology is possible for you, you could also use air casters that drop the bed when you want it to be stationary and raise the bed onto its wheels when/if it needs to move.


----------



## gafftaper (May 10, 2013)

Huh... I'm surprised I never posted about this before. Yes it must be that big. The script requires it to be "20 mattresses" high. We did "Mattress" about 10 years ago when I was a high school teacher. We built a heavy 4x8 base out of 2x6's. Put some 4 inch casters on it and wagon breaks. From there I built up with 2x6's and built a 4x8 platform on top (2x4 and 3/4 ply construction). Filled out the sides with luan. Here are a couple of pictures of it under construction. The final song requires that a wide variety of crap be "brought out of the bed" The odder and larger, the better. So you will notice that I built a platform inside with a trap door in the top of the bed. This allowed crew to be inside the bed easily handing things to the Jester as he's pulling all the stuff out. 



So how do you get up there then is the question. I permanently attached a ladder which not only was a way up and down but also acted as an outrigger and break. The ladder was hinged at the top. If you look closely at the picture below you will see that a metal rod extends through the side of the bed and attaches to the ladder. Crew would slide the rod out a few inches, lifting the ladder off the floor to move the bed. Then once parked they would slide the rod back in to lower the ladder down to the parked position. I put a little rubber on the bottom of the ladder for a good grip. The bed was very strong and very stable. At one point I had about 10 kids on the bed for a cast photo and even then we never had issues with it moving around or feeling weak. 

As for the "mattresses" I took sheets of styrofoam in three different thicknesses and cut them to different widths. Wrap the foam with strips of fabric to make it look like a variety of sheet materials and thicknesses.


----------

