TIGHT TRUSSING FOR THE FUGARD THEATRE

The Fugard Theatre and Studio in the historic Sacks Futeran building in Cape Town's District Six was named in honour of South Africa's greatest playwright, Athol Fugard, and has become a prime venue for Western Cape theatre lovers. In 2010 Electrosonic SA supplied and installed lighting equipment in the 280-seater cinema style theatre, and this year was commissioned to supply a Litec trussing structure and a range of theatre lighting equipment for the adjoining 150-seater Theatre Studio.

Electrosonic has developed a strong relationship with the theatre over the years and was natu rally the preferred supplier for the Studio project. The time available to import additional truss elements was limited, but as always, Litec ensured the supply of all the necessary components. These comprised 8 x QX30S029, 4 x QX30S050, 20 x QX30S100, 11 x QX30S200, 15 x Qx30S250, 5 x QX30S400, 16 x QX30K8 Dado, 32 x QXFC, 56 x QXKFC and 8 x 400 x 400mm base plates.

The trussing structure had to be designed to very tight tolerances. Due to the small size of the venue, it needed to be as close as possible to the walls and roof of the room. "In the end we managed to have a clearance of approximately 100 mm all around!" said Keith Pugin, Litec's product manager at Electrosonic. The trussing structure consisted of 8 x legs on base plates with a top structure to support a huge custom-built chandelier (measuring 6m x 3,5m and weighing 500 kg) and the luminaires. The lighting equipment supplied included 4 x Martin MAC700 Profiles, 6 x Electron Actor 716 Dimmers in flight cases, 16 x ADB DW105 1KW Zoom profiles, 6 x ADB F201 2KW fresnels, 12 x ADB F101 1KW fresnels, 20 x DTS Par 64 Classic and a Compulite Vector control desk.