CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Gear Motors Raise Viva Elvis Stage

Entertainment Engineering: "The design of the Elvis Theater for Cirque du Soleil’s production Viva Elvis resembles an opera house. The stage is wide and the backstage area and wings are vast. The sides and the rear of the stage are fixed areas while the center is composed of 16 platforms, separated into 12 sections which can rise to a height of ten feet. Depending on the scene, the platforms may at various times in the show support performers, singers, dancers, or set elements.

1 comment:

Robert said...

This seems very interesting; it seems a lot like the automation system that CMU has with all the redundancies and safety factors that is has in it. I just wonder how they would lower the largest stage section if the power was to go out and all the brakes where to brake. With the 8 motors that they have I wonder if there is one manual release or is there 8 and they would need 8 people. The other solution, leave the people up there. One of the things that this article lacks is more information about this system. Also it seems somewhat late for this type of article to be coming out for this show the show I think has been running for all most a year.