My experience with a Dracula
play didn't have the levitation
gag but it did have three others that ranged from very simple to a little difficult. The first was how to have a sofa very visibly "compress" as though an invisible Dracula had seated himself. The scond was the hardest, in part due to the set design, was for a pair of frenchdoors, centered in a large window wall, to
swing open then shut again as the invisible dracula passed through. The third was the most spactacular, the 20" tall crucifix being held by one actor that burst into flames when dracula touched it.
The first was simply several small (Clipard Minimatic brand) pneumatic cylinders that were attached to
webbing which was sewn to the back side of the upholstry
lining before the
cover was put on. Activated by small solonoid valves that were sequenced to start at the front and finish with the upper back as "he" sat and a second set that pulled from one side to the other about half way through as though he had crossed his legs or shifted his weight.
The second was slightly more difficult as the doors had to be operated normally by the live actors during the show and they were placed in a large window wall with a row of window panes above the door as well, so there was no place but under the floor to hide any mechnism. The particular
stage we were on was not trapped, which would have made it very easy, so the concession was a 8" high landing across the room about 6' in front of the wall, with the veranda outside the same height. The doors had a 3/16"x1 1/2" steel bar about 1' long running along the underside of the door. It stuck out the hinge end and had a 1/2" steel rod (cold rolled, keyed shaft, not just hot rolled rod) welded to it that went down through the floor directly in
line with the hinge pin axis. The end of the shaft was threaded and keyed so it could be bolted to another
flat bar, about 30" long, under the floor. To open and close the doors all you had to do was operate the bars below the floor like a long lever . It could have been by strings/cable/rope running under the
deck to a
stage hand or pneumatic cylinders, small servo or stepper motors
etc. We used a 2 hp
VFD motor with a programable frequency drive simply because we had it in
stock from previous shows. It was about 98% more
power than we needed, but the programable drive made the action very realistic. The doors were pulled open and shut by a #25
roller chain with an
encoder on the chain. The connection to the motor was a small pneumatic clutch so the doors could be operated by the actors and the chain just free wheeled. The
encoder was on the chain so it alway knew where the door was, even when the motor was disengaged. If for some reason the actors left the doors slightly ajar before the gimmick, the drive still "knew" where they were. The only draw back with the
effect design was that both doors operated together, so as not to give away the gimmick, the actors always had to open both doors even though either one would move the other. With the programable drive and the long sweep of the operating arms, the doors motion ramped up and down at the start and stop instead of "jerk", even when operated very fast.
The Last item, the cross was fairly easy but very spactacular. The basic wood cross was a solid maple 2x2, half lapped into a cross 20" tall x about 14" wide. Then we very carefully band-sawed a 1/4" slice off the back. Next we routed out the interior of the cross to make a hollow shell about 1/4" thick. We found a brass Christ figure of an appropriate size and, just in case anyone posed any objections, we had a priest perform an official "desanctifying rite" and provide us with a written confirmation that it had been done. Better to deal with possible issues like that ahead of time. Anyway, we brazed threaded rod to the back so it could be attached to the cross and removed every day. We used flash paper, Flash Paper glue and flash paper ink to make a 3 ply
face to the cross that, of course had to be done new every day. The paper covered the entire
face of the cross except the bottom 3" where the actor had to hold on. The paper was lightly glued to the
face and then the brass figure was attached. there was a 1/4" hole under the figure that an
electric match was passed through. The match head and 1/2" wad of flash paper were behind the torso of the figure. Inside the hollowed out shell there were six 9v batteries wired in series-parrallel to get 27v for the 24v
electric match. There were two switches, one to arm the
gag and one to fire it. The arm
switch was a slide
switch with a small
LED to indicate it was armed. This was located on the side at the top. The "Fire"
switch was a NO
momentary at the bottom. The bottom 3" of the back
cover was actually hinged with a stiff spring under it. The actor had to squeeze the cross firmly to fire it. Thus moments before the
gag the actor was blocked to hold the cross at the top and bottom and "
thrust" it toward the vampire,
hand at top sliding the "arm"
switch to on and verifying it by seeing the
LED light up. Then as Dracula reached out and touched the cross, the actor let go of the top and squeezed the bottom with both hands. The cross burst into flame that lasted about 3 seconds, enough to convince the audience that the vampire wasn't going to try that again!
Both the first two gags could be done by
stage hands pulling trick
line, the cross could be done by substituting super bright LEDs and perhaps a flash cube. With todays available LEDs and small chips available online and from novelty shops, a short flash sequence with the LEDs might substitute for flame in places where
pyro is not allowed. This was done long before LEDs and similar were available, it was at GeVa
Theatre, a
LORT C
house back in 1983. We already owned the equipment and expertise so the mechanics were easy. We already had
stage hands for
fire watch and at that time our own internal
safety protocol with
pyro was far more than "required", though today it would be considered a standard but minimum compliance.