J.R. Clancy Provides 46 PowerLift Automated Line Sets to Renovated Hanna Theatre, Cleveland

	Photo by Scott Pease

The newly renovated Hanna Theatre in Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare reopened in October 2008, with 48 new PowerLift Automated Hoists provided by J. R. Clancy, Inc. and installed by Beck Studios.

The only theatre in PlayhouseSquare with a computer-controlled automated rigging system, the Hanna has been transformed from a circa 1921 Broadway tour house with an old-fashioned hemp and counterweight rigging system to an-to-date, year-round home for the Great Lakes Theater Festival.

The Hanna Theatre's was for more than 60 years the leading Broadway touring house in Cleveland, with such stars as Noel Coward, Henry Fonda, Helen Hayes, Hume Cronyn, and Jessica Tandy gracing its stage. The theatre went dark in 1988 when Broadway tours moved to a newer theatre in Playhouse Square, then underwent a renovation that converted it into a cabaret-style performance space. It operated in this form until December 2007, when it closed for its current reconstruction.

Designed by Westlake Reed Leskosky, the newly imagined Hanna Theatre's $14.7 million renovation reduced the house to 500 seats --down from the original 1,400 -- with no seat more than 11 rows from the action onstage. Innovative seating arrangements include banquettes for groups, table configurations, and boxes as well as traditional theatre seats. The architects chose Clancy automated rigging and hydraulic systems to add flexibility to the thrust stage configuration.

The three hydraulic lifts are the result of a collaboration between Atlantic Industrial Technologies, Turner Construction, J. R. Clancy, and MGMcLarenEngineering. The result: The lifts can change the configuration of the stage at a speed of 2' per second. The project was made possible by a donation of parts from industriallift manufacturer Parker-Hannifin.

Great Lakes Theater Festival performs in rotating repertory, so automated rigging makes a critical difference in the company's ability to change over from one major productionj to another.

Speaking of the system, Charles Fee, the theatre's producing artistic director, said, "We have48 separate line sets in here, each one of which can carry 1,250lbs..They're all electronically operated by computer, and we can move 12 of them simultaneously, each at a different speed or in a different direction. We'll change over from Macbeth to Into the Woods in two hours -- reconfigure the whole theatre with our deck crew in two hours. That is nothing, really.It used to take ten hours to do a significant changeover."

This level of automation is made possible by Clancy's SceneControl 500 motion control system, which can move as many as 12 line sets simultaneously, even if each moves at a different speed.With only one person required to run the SceneControl system, the show can run with fewer operators. In addition to the computer console, the Hanna chose a portable pendant, which allows stagehands to control the 48 PowerLifts and the three hydraulic stage lifts remotely, moving to whatever spot offers the best sight lines for observation of moving scenery.

In addition to the rigging and lifts, Clancy installed a Zetex fire curtain with a powered brail winch and eight gallery-mounted, moving portable light ladders on HD tracks.