November 2023
The Royale
Healey Theatre
I worked on this project as Technical Director for a production of The Royale in a blackbox space with a catwalk and no preinstalled rigging. The boxing bag had to fly down into the center of the boxing ring for actors to use, then fly completely out to be hidden up by the catwalks.
I used the existing I-Beams in the space to rig off of, attaching custom made sheaves onto unistrut. Rope was run through these sheaves to an operation point in the back of the catwalk, where a stagehand would take it in and out during the show.
One difficult aspect of this project was trying to reduce the swing of the boxing bag, both when it was in use and when it was flying in or out. If the stagehand operating it took it in or out too quickly, they would risk hitting lights in the catwalk. We were able to add some stability by moving the head block further out over the edge, as well as a clip in the center of the boxing ring to minimize swing when it was being hit.