The Transformation
Every year, the Central Court Gym gets converted into a Medieval England Lord's Hall. The process is not a quick one. It takes a crew of twelve to twenty people aproximately seventy two hours to complete the transformation. It starts by unpacking all of the peices from the last year. The next process is to hang the sound and lighting in the rafters. While the tech crew is setting up the sound and lighting another crew starts putting up the ceiling. The ceiling is a time consuming peice because it is individual peices of fabric just long enough to span the entirety of the gym and cover the outer walls. Once the ceiling is up and the sound and lighting are done the arches and the entry way start being put up.
The giant arches are the last major peice of work untill "Pedroville" is assembled. Now the wall behind the court table goes up and the area infront of it gets worked on. The "White Wall of Death" (as it is known by the crew because of its laborious set up proceedure) is the next thing to go up. Once up the crew splits up into different groups to do the fine details such as the castle ramparts in the case of the 2008 performance, the hanging candles, the tables, the ivory, and the table cloths. This concludes the majority of things that get assembled in the main hall.
The work is not done however. "Pedroville" needs to get set up. "Pedroville" is the village out in the main entry way to the Central Court Building. It is called "Pedroville" because Eric "Pedro" Rubeck designed the village for Twelfth Night and helped construct it in the early years of the production. Pedroville is usually assembled the day before the first performance because of businesses located in the hallway. Pedroville consists of a shop, a small stage, the doors to the great hall and is topped off with the grand archway where guests first arrive. The grand archway looks like the main enterance to a Medieval castle!
