MOUNT VERNON — Actors normally “tread the boards” on-stage as they perform. But Tuesday at the Memorial Theater, the actors were barely touching the boards at all as they careened through the air.
They were rehearsing the flying scenes from the upcoming production of “Peter Pan,” which will open on June 26 in a production by Bruce Jacklin and Company. After getting over their initial jitters, the actors said they found it exhilarating.
“It’s awesome,” said 9-year-old Megan Porter, who plays the young boy Michael in the show. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. Flying rocks!”
With the help of a backstage crew pulling the wire ropes, Quentin Platt, who plays John, and Kinsey Crow, who plays Wendy, rehearsed a scene where John and Wendy put a top hat on Michael. The tricky part is they have to be moving in midair while doing this.
“That move is very difficult because you’ll have a tendency to separate,” called out Jonathan Stich, the professional stage flying technician brought in for the production from ZFX Flying Effects, one of the few companies which specializes in stage flying. He brings the equipment to town and then trains the participants for three days.
“I’ve done 50 ‘Peter Pans,’” said Stich, who has been a technician with the company for about a year.
The company itself has been around for 13 years, and now has 37 full-time employees who are deployed all over the world to help with theatrical productions. This is thought to be the first occasion that full-scale flying (not restricted to up-and-down movements) will be accomplished on the stage of the Memorial Theater.
The flying actors all wear snug, sturdy harnesses which wrap around their torsos and under their legs. The harnesses have a built-in metal plate to which the wire rope attaches. The wires run up to a carrier dolly, which runs along a metal I-beam track suspended from the same grid above the stage which holds the lighting equipment, curtains and backdrops. The ropes run over pulleys as part of the carefully engineered system which provides mechanical advantage, multiplying the force the rope-pullers use. The wires come down in the wings backstage where the “fliers” are stationed. They pull the ropes in different ways to create the flying movements.
One of the backstage pilots is Andy Johns, who said the hardest parts of running the ropes are timing and flow.
“Getting the movement of the rope through your hands is tough,” Johns said. “Every little jerk you make translates into a big jump for them on stage.”
Platt, Porter and Crow discovered how complicated it could get as they practiced the moment when each one first flies into the air. Porter had trouble keeping herself from tilting forward because at first she was watching her feet when she rose up into the air. As she settled back down to the stage floor, Crow was sent aloft. She began to sway as she came back down, which threatened to bring her down on top of Porter.
Stich stopped the fliers and gave both the actors and rope fliers tips on how to avoid tangle-ups during performance. He explained that if a movement goes wrong in performance, the key is to improvise out of it with smooth movements by both the performers and their guides.
Tatiana Leis, the production’s Peter Pan, demonstrated how fun the flying could be, sweeping confidently back and forth across the stage, at least until her momentum brought her close enough to actually touch one of the walls backstage. But, with a little further practice, she and the others will dazzle the audience by fearlessly taking flight.
