A Tale of Two Cities

Our Fall 2000 presentation of A Tale of Two Cities featured a huge cast at several "locations." We incorporated multilevel and moving platforms to represent the bank, England, France, The Bastille, La Force Prison, a wine shop, a ship, apartments in France and other locations. We utilized area light to isolate each scene. We built a cart strong enough to carry six and a working guillotine. We put a trick blade in the guillotine because we didn't have enough cast members to spare...

 
The guillotine came from illustrations we found on the Internet. We also found some chilling background information about how they worked and when they were last used (answer below). We are happy to report no injuries from the guillotine itself; there were injuries, but none on the guillotine.
   
When the guillotine cue comes, script in a couple of extra blackouts. This will prevent inadvertantly lighting up a scene that should remain dark. The guillotine is made of two 4x4x12 timbers with a groove routed inside. The cart wheels are three 3/4" plywood sheets bonded together (after cutting them out of course).
 

The Bastille is 1000 square feet of scene painting. The first coat leaked because the fabric wasn't primed right last year (oops!)
 
The platform is our 16' revolve from Noises Off! We moved the center pin to get it to move the guillotine into the dramatic light you see above. As usual (ho, hum) we got tons of compliments on the lighting and staging. The sails (no photo) came from Mr. Kaluta's sailboat, the Jack Aubrey.

Here's the opening scene...

This shot was from the back of the theater using 1000 speed film. That's Darnay on the left, Carton on the right.
As you can see they are identical, which is of supreme importance to the show.

 

Stage Crew members at Homecoming, "Off with his head!"
The Stage Crew float won first place.

The next show... Guys and Dolls!

The French put their guillotine away in 1977. Not a misprint, 1977.