My current research in the area of theater and live performance focuses on the application of technology to production design. Specifically, I am interested in developing and disseminating new solutions for automation and control systems for stage machinery and live theatrical effects. This work has the following goals: 1) to develop highly flexible systems that promote a wide range of artistic experimentation and implementation across a variety of performance venues, 2) to integrate the technology currently used by theater practitioners, and 3) to utilize the existing and affordable industrial-control components recently available as a result of advances in microprocessor control and power electronics. I believe this research will offer the artists, technicians, and crafts-people who collaborate on performance a broader set of tools with which to work.

I have already completed a first phase of this larger project by researching and then developing a guide to the selection of motor drives for theater stage machinery. The next portion of the of research entails development of an electronic control system that works as an interface between an operator (stagehand) and this motor drive technology. I plan to incorporate a control protocol familiar to performance, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), as a means of recording an operator’s actions while manipulating a mechanized scenic effect. Originally devised to allow electronic keyboard synthesizers to talk to and remotely control one another, the MIDI standard and its implementation have grown into a variety of protocols that already allow a great many devices used in the entertainment industry to communicate. There are, as a result of the ubiquitous and familiar nature of MIDI, a great many devices already available to integrate into my proposed control system. Further, the electronic signals sent with this protocol are easily recorded, edited, and replayed, so the implementation of the control system can easily adapt to the changing needs of a live performance situation.

I will devote my work under a University Research Institute--Summer Research Award toward the laboratory/workshop time needed to develop a working prototype of my proposed system. My focus in the lab/shop will be 1) construction of a test-bed or small-scale mockup of a scenic device that this new system will control, 2) identification, assembly, and testing of the machine interface and control system, and 3) investigation of the computer software necessary to record, edit, and replay the control information. I am seeking this grant in particular as I feel that the summer offers the rare opportunity for unbroken time in process development without the pressures of our College’s production season and the demands of teaching in the long semesters.

I intend to have, once the grant period expires, a working prototype of my system that can be more rigorously tested in live performance. I anticipate this will first involve a collaboration with a University of Texas College of Fine Arts production, and later a collaboration with one of the country’s regional theaters. The results of the development and collaborative testing phase of my research will make an ideal submission as an article for publication, as well as a springboard toward additional research on further additions and refinements to the field of motion control for the stage.

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© Fritz Schwentker -- 26 August 2004