Lighting in traverse

[Just Some Bloke]

Just had a quick B-) and found that Scenography - The Theatre Design Website refer to it as Traverse. Also, the BBC's GCSE notes on staging says that "A stage where the audience sits on two sides is called a traverse stage. " Linky. Also, I've never known it called anything other than traverse in my 25 or so years in the business. Nevertheless, the Concise OED doesn't define "traverse" as anything theatrical but does define "transverse" as "acting in crosswise direction". How strange. :)

[Bryson]

Cheers for the advice. I will give this some thought. Bryson - it would be great if you could upload a plan!

 

Cheers

 

 

Sorry, taken me ages to get back - been struck down with the swine flu.

 

Here's a Traverse plan that I'm going to hang tonight: Contrary to what I said before, I've gone for a 4-sided approach here. (Actually 5 if you count the gobo wash from the 6x9s) The space is pretty tiny, with only 35 channels to play with, so not over-complex:

 

http://bryson.albassamtheatre.com//LWW%20compressed.jpg

 

Worth noting that everything is pretty steep - mainly to try and avoid blinding (and lighting) the audience on the other side. Nothing worse than seeing the rest of the audience staring back at you.

 

For the same space, here's one lit from three sides. This one is particularly weird as there was what was effectively a suspended ceiling over much of the space - making my choice of angles a bit impoverished:

http://bryson.albassamtheatre.com//Woodsman%20final%20LX%20to%20scale%201%20page.jpg

 

 

Finally, here's one that I lit more as a series of specials - but each "special" is lit in the three-sided 120 Degree method:

 

http://bryson.albassamtheatre.com//Holy%20Mo%201%20Page%20Version.jpg

 

 

I actually really like designing in this space: it's small, sure, and there's not lots of "new" kit to play with, but the limitations on size and channels makes you really decide what's important to the design, and what's not. There's no room for lights you might not use. Everything has to be just-so, and I like that.