not to start a whole sexist thing, but in our department the whole cast has to help with
strike. Some chorus
line girl will inevitably get her hands on a drill and start taking out every screw she sees, even if its the one holding the curtain
line pulley to the floor. So its not just testosterone ridden boys.
But as for how we do it, naturally everything is disassembled from the top down...usually. Again, a cast member (A guy this time) got a drill and started unscrewing the 45s from under and 8'
platform while there were people standing on it.
We keep most of the platforms (at least the decking and substructure) together for future use, as well as any stairs...there's not much use to stair stiles without any stairs.
Because I'm usually in charge of
strike, most of the stuff we use never gets thrown out. I'm of the mindset that anything we
throw out will be needed in three days. But recently, I found a screw
in one of the many Maxwell
House coffee cans we have that was from a show we did four years ago. The head was stripped and filled with green paint and glitter from the
Wizard of Oz, and it was bent at a 45 degree angle. It was then that I realized we needed to do some weeding out.
Occasionally, if we have a really big set piece, multiple stories
etc, we'll
lay it down to disassemble using our the
electric motors on our battens. Their WWL is rated at a couple thousand pounds so we use them to
hoist and lower stuff on occasion.