Grease
Forest Roberts Theatre - Northern Michigan University 2023
Production Management: David Pierce
Direction: Paul Truckey
Music Direction: Donna Schaffer
Audio Design: Ryan Harvey
Choreography: Megan Hibbard & Gracie Fries
Costume Design: Em Rossi
Lighting Design: David Pierce
Properties Design: Jordan RusselL
Scenic Design: Lex van Blommestein
Technical Direction: Braeden Ingersoll
Production photo credit: John scheibe ~ YNDR Studios
The settings of Grease primarily revolve around their school Rydell High. This is a box set unit with hidden compartments to reveal additional scenes and locales.
One such scene is the bedroom of Marty Maraschino. This unit was tracked using v groove casters mounted on custom angle iron track.
The Technical Ground Plan displays the onstage location for all units and further depicts the required offstage space for our hidden units.
Being the final production of our academic season, Grease was our largest production of the year and required all hands on deck from my staff to accomplish its load in.
With the inherent dynamics of our scenic design, ensuring the ground plan had adequate spacing and tracking was vital to our success.
Our Grease Lightning car was a 1953 Nash Rambler, graciously loaned to us by Walled Lake Consolidated Schools. Our agreement was that we would install a pneumatic caster system to improve the car's onstage mobility & enable WLCS to generate revenue through rentals.
To ensure the successful use of the car when it was returned, I crafted this manual to explain the components, their functions, troubleshooting, and procedures to follow pre and post show.
The pneumatic system was fed by a portable compressor tank, and passed through this 3/2 switch controlled by a toggle switch mounted on the dash. From here air is directed to our 4 port manifold and distributed to each caster.
To lift the car, we implemented RoseBrand's pneumatic casters which are comprised of heavy duty zero throw casters and pneumatic bladder rated for 880lbs.