When the stage in Tamanend Park was taken down it was a very sad thing, not only for me, but for many other people. Over the time we did Shakespeare in the Park and Cinema Under the Stars many people came to experience the stage.
Not only other performing troupes, but also many families came with their kids, who expressed their inner desires to be onstage. I often performed my flute on that stage, sometimes for other people, but mostly for God.
We had a developing workshop set up in the barn, where we stored sets, costumes, and supplies for the stage. We also had an outdoor storage area backstage for supplies.
One of the goals was to rebuild the stage out of stone, so we could eliminate the maintenance issues around the stage being made of wood.
You see, the stage that we built was done so using stage platforms I had, which were last used for the Yellow Brick Road in "The Wizard of Oz". It was intended primarily as a temporary stage, to see if the concept would work. Well, it did work, albeit not without problems. The biggest difficulty was vandalism. That was an ongoing problem. Before I took the stage down, I had filed 18 police reports. It got out if hand. When the backdrop frame was ripped down I got fed up and the Director of the Park was also unhappy with it as well.
We decided to remove the stage. It's a shame, because we had just begun discussing rebuilding the stage out if more permanent materials, stone. But we were also considering some landscaping to improve drainage in the field. I also wanted to expand the stage upward and add balconies. That would have been further problems with the juvenile delinquents who were imposing the damage and possibly be a liability in that regard. I actually determined that if I were to pursue an outdoor stage of this nature, it needed to be on private property, where it could be fenced in an locked up. That seems to be the only practical approach to security.
So I determined that I was going to rebuild the stage as a portable unit, capable of being set up in any park or other location and being a rental stage.
Nothing has happened in that regard, because my resources are being dedicated to publishing the Illustrated Storybooks of "The Gnomes of New Hope". But one interesting thing has come up in that regard.
I am intent on constructing a parade float for The Gnomes. Well, I had previously designed a stage for use in parades, because I was considering getting into the parade float business. The first designs I came up with were to be used on an old truck frame. When I showed the designs to an associate, he said he'd buy four of them. What do you know? If that were to be the case, it would have to be built on a new truck chassis, and four of them linked together would equate to a standard size stage. now all of them, however need to be powered, only of it's used for a self- powered parade float. Humm... It never got built.
I have since changed my thinking on the chassis I want to use for the self-powered portable stage. I'm going to use a Corvair Truck. The reason- elimination of the drive shaft and the flexibility that offers in having a variable length of the stage. Not that I'm planning on changing the length, although you could, but rather that I can determine the length needed for the sets and staging area and then adjust accordingly. Confirming the stage to the sets, not the sets to the stage.
The drawings for this stage/parade float are underway, but I realize that this portable stage needs to take into account the future use of it for a restart of park staging activities of various sorts.
p.s. Word has it that Southampton is considering a new amphitheatre in Tamanend Park. That would be nice, but I'm sure it would not be as intimate as The Meadow Amphitheatre was.
That's all for now. I'll update this post later.
Check the IMS Virtual Studio for other discussions.
AG
