[Charc]

Originally Posted by willmanc

I have no theatre background and was "thrown" into the situation as being the technical director and set designer for the high school I teach at. I have several students that are very interested in theatre and would like to continue their education in technical theatre.
I've taught myself a lot through reading, and going to see local performances and professional shows. I just dont feel that I can keep the level of performance where they are expected to be by designing myself... and I am not comfortable in teaching my students elements of design. I would hate to teach them the wrong thing and find out in college that I was wrong.
I would rather teach the engineering concepts used to produce the sets. Two years ago, we "reproduced" Beauty as close as we could. Students were able to work with "Flying by Foy," we researched and use pyro, made our west wing rotate (with home-made tracking), and had a great transformation scene (very similar to broadway).
This year, we are doing Les Mis and I am planning on making the turntable (32' Dia) and would like to do the Barricade broadway style, where it comes in vertically and rotates down. We have to use rudementary electronics to accomplish this, learn about gearing, motors, and simple machines.
Thanks for all of the input, and feel free to comment back.
Where is the new members section?

How did the pyro go? What type of effects did you use? Did you have to, and was it a pain to, deactivate any necessary fire alarm systems, clear it with the fire marshall, and have a member of the FD on fire watch?