Rotational Theater

The purpose of the Rotational Theater is to allow for more elaborate stage design and to bring the audience closer to the actors. This is achieved by having both the actors and the audience move to a new stage when there is a scene change. For clarity, physical description of the Rotational Theater has been divided into sections

The Scenes and Stages: Each scene in the play has its own stage. The stages are arranged in a ring so that the stages face outward, sequential scenes are adjacent, and the first and last scenes are adjacent. The stages are all the same size, and all of the scenes take the same amount of time. A circular back stage is shared by all stages.

The Audience Train: A railroad-like track encircles the ring of stages, and upon the track is a train of inward facing audience cars. Each audience car matches up with one stage to form a sound proof mini theater. The number of cars is equal to the number of scenes. The Audience Train can rotate so that any audience car can be matched with any stage, and if one audience car is matched with a stage then so are the rest of the audience cars.

Operation: Theater goers form a line outside of the audience car which is in front of the stage for scene 1. Theater goers move from the line into this audience car. Scene 1 is performed for this audience car. After scene 1 is complete, the audience train rotates so that the audience car that was in front of the scene 1 stage is now in front of the scene two stage. Now a new group of theater goers moves from the line to the audience car in front of scene 1. A new group of actors performs scene 1 while the original group of actors performs scene 2. In this way, each audience car makes a trip around the ring of stages with one group of actors. After an audience car has scene all of the scenes, they exit the audience train, and their group of actors starts the cycle over with scene 1.