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The TD is responsible for procuring all the raw material for sets. A trip to Home Depot and Backstage Hardware usually takes care of most needs (but there's some stuff in the office if you need e.g. 2x4s or plywood. There's also a lot of unlabelled wood in the set shop that can be used). A list of materials should be compiled as soon as possible during the production process so it can be updated quickly and easily- you don't want to spend an extra hour of travel time because you forgot to buy the dowel pins when you had a U-Haul. Make sure you're aware of Home Depot's and U-Haul's hours before scheduling this trip. Home Depot's Pro Desk (for delivery) is only open during business hours.
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Platforms can be obtained from CAC. Make sure that butterfly steps and German hardware are around when they're delivered to La Sala. Pretty much all audience platforms (any chairs not on the ground or on butterflies) should have toe rails. This can be pretty much anything - 1×2 or dexion is best, thicker pieces of wood will also work. Audience rails can either be borrowed from MTG (they're in the scene shop in Walker basement) or built; there are a number of them in the ensemble office that are already built. The difficult part is to make sure that the railing are stable and must be reinforced below the seating platform to avoid wobbling. Additionally, toe rails need to be added to the audience platforms so that chairs don't slide off the back- any scrap wood is fine for this. Make sure that all platforms that vary in height by more than 10" have a step present, and that it is firmly attached. Generally this is only an issue with the butterflies.
Audience size: you can look at the number of audience members expected for a given show and use that to decide how many seats to add or remove for that show. The size of the audience may depend on how well-known the show is - a well-known show can attract up to 150 people per night, but 100 might be larger than can be expected for something nobody's ever heard of.
An incomplete list of audience requirements:
- Aisles must be 36" wide if there is audience on one side, and 48" wide for both sides
- There can be no more than 7 chairs between any one chair and the aisle(that's 8 seats if there is a aisle on one side, and 15 if both sides)
- Any chairs that are more than 16 inches off the ground need audience railings
- There must be an unobstructed path from the chairs to the doors, with no stage area (masonite) in the way.
- There must be 36 inches of unobstructed space in front of the first row of audience. Masonite counts as open space.
- There should be 32" from chair back to chair back.
- There should be 48" between any chair and an exit door.
Booth
Booth tends to be in one of: Spacedock, monument, and behind the audience on Germans.
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