Stage Manager's station

[EustaceM]

I was thinking of building a portable stage manager "station". Where the Stage Manager can call/run the show anywhere in the theatre space. It would have racks for video monitors, intercom equipment (headset & master station) A built in desk to put prompt book and other materials. It would have a built in light.

Any ideas, design, recommendations you can offer me. I'd like for it to be portable. Maybe some Kind of installed battery unit to run equipment if possible?

[Chris15]

It makes no sense to try and make this battery powered.
You still have to run cable for video, comms, etc, so what's the issue with running a power cable alongside those?

[EustaceM]

It was a thought. But makes better sense to just run power cords when I would have to run video feeds and intercom as well.

[chausman]

It was a thought. But makes better sense to just run power cords when I would have to run video feeds and intercom as well.

Especially because the SM is probably the last person you want loosing power mid show, because someone forgot to "plug their desk in" between shows.

Here's something you might want to look at. Might give you a good starting place.

Here's a recently-built RVI station:

from A sweet RVI setup - Electronic Theatre Controls.

[cpf]

This kind of thing is common in hospitals, look for "computer carts," "rolling workstation," etc. Most of them have built in UPS systems, and modular mounting systems so you can load it up with whatever you need.

[rochem]

First, I have to mention the SM console from GDS. I saw this at USITT this year and it's SO INCREDIBLY COOL. Unfortunately, it's likely out of many budget ranges, and I'm not sure how it'd be to actually work with it, but it's a unique idea. ACT is their North American distributor.

But back to reality. SM consoles traditionally consist of a large wooden desk with a shelf for a calling script and storage areas inside the desk. Then a normal 12-16U rack gets placed on top of the desk that contains everything you need. What I tend to see most commonly in the rack is a 4-channel Clear Com remote station, a 1U Littlite Raklite, an AMS-1025 2ch monitor (one for band and one for voice), an MBT PC-800 switch unit (or something else) for triggering cue lights, and 4 or so monitors for various stage shots. I agree that trying to go wireless is a bad idea, and running cable isn't as difficult as you might think. For a more engineered solution, you can have a custom cable made that includes 4 channels of comm, video, a program feed, SM announce out, and whatever else you need, then you can run a power cable alongside it. However, it would be cheaper and more future-proof if you just bundle together a 9PR mult, an Ethernet line, and a power line, then install a multitail, an RJ-45 input, and a male panel-mount edison into the back of the rack.

I've seen some theatres custom order or buy off-the-shelf a more engineered solution, and while this works, you need to be careful. One theatre I work with went all out and had a custom cable built for their SM rack, along with a custom rack back panel that included outputs for everything coming out of the mult. However, since the panel is built to cover the entire rack, as soon as they wanted a second audio feed running into the rack, the only solution was to cut a hole in the expensive panel to get new cable inside the rack.

I've attached a rack drawing of a fairly standard SM rack. Hope this helps.

[kiwitechgirl]

One of the theatres I worked in had something similar. All the cables (comms, cue lights, two video feeds, paging both FOH and BOH) were combined into a Harting plug and then we had four spots around the theatre (SL, SR, centre of the house and in the control room) where you could plug it in - but if you wanted to shift it further away it just needed a longer cable. Power ran seperately but only needed one lead. It was a fairly simple desk - sloping lid for a prompt book, which opened up so you could store stuff, cue light master station, comms master station, paging system, two monitors and a couple of Littlelites attached to it. The desk came off its legs - which was just a metal frame - so it was easy to move. The only thing it was missing was anywhere to stash pens and pencils, and anywhere to put a drink bottle - both things which I reckon are important!

[JLNorthGA]

We're cheap. We actually found a nice "conductor's stand" (gently used). The height was good, it had a place to store stuff, etc.

The only reason I'm mentioning it is that it makes an excellent starting point. For us, it was ideal as we don't have video feeds.

[EustaceM]

Any designs or pictures?

I started off (design) with a cabinet-like rack with swivel casters with removable shelves and pull-out desk for prompt book and cue sheets. Above that I'm going to install a lamp (I saw one on a conductor's podium. It was similar to a music stand light but bigger scale) Power strips mounted to the sides. On the sides of the desk are cubby-like holes for supplies; pens, pencils, flashlight, tools. The backside has detachable panels the bottom one is for power cords, in going and out going plugs.

[JohnD]

I was thinking that something like this might work:
Shop Desks | Shop Desks | Heavy Duty Shop Desks - GlobalIndustrial.com
Add casters and some of the other options and you are good to go. Some custom touches are also possible, like adding desk mount littlelites to the cubby hole top, and if you needed rack space, convert the cabinet top riser with rack rails on one side and still have storage room.
I really like how you can add power outlets to the rear legs, with outlets both outside and inside.

[ruinexplorer]

Maybe start with a mobile DJ rack like this?

[museav]

Mobile video production consoles are very common and have many of the same needs (the Contractor I worked some years ago for built many portable systems for schools and a number of portable production systems that went to Bosnia along with our troops). You could look at rack manufacturers for the basic rack shell as well as shelves, drawers, blank panels, etc. Companies like Marshall Electronics offer low profile rack mount or slide out shelf mount monitors.

Here's one potential connector for audio, comms, control, video and data, AV2000 - The Wireworks Store.

Being able to use such a unit anywhere in the theater may be difficult to support if you want to include video, comms, signaling, a God mic, chimes control, etc. A limited number of connection locations may be more practical but would still require the appropriate infrastructure and signal distribution. And consider just where it could be located with not only being practical to move to those locations but also without potentially impeding accessibility or exiting. In many venues such considerations end up defining a more limited number of potential locations than may have initially been envisionedt.