After nearly two years at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, Wicked packed up and moved north to begin an open-ended engagement at the Orpheum Theatre. What does it take to move and remount a multimillion production especially when your packing list includes 350 costumes, 90 wigs, miles and miles of cable, well over 400 lights, two 12,000 pound trusses, and a 10,000 pound proscenium, not to mention a Clock of Time Dragon with a wing span of 36 feet?  It takes ingenuity, detailed planning, flawless coordination, teamwork and a whole lot of muscle.

“Each department—scenic, lighting, sound, projections, costumes, hair, makeup, props—has a person that oversees the artistic and technical aspects of their department. They are the specialists,” explains Wicked Production Supervisor, Thom Widmann. “Technical Production Manager Jake Bell oversees all the technical departments and is responsible for the entire physical production. He’s the puppet master. As Production Supervisor, I deal with the logistics, the master schedule and coordinating with our creative team.  Mostly, I facilitate communication between all the departments. I’m the U.N.”

The move from Los Angeles to San Francisco was the first time Jake Bell has moved this particular production of Wicked. “We knew it would eventually move to San Francisco so before it started in LA, we took every piece of scenery and we measured it,” Bell explains. “Then we took those measurements and put it on an AutoCAD drawing to do three-dimensional movement of those pieces of scenery. Essentially, we packed the truck by computer first.”

Much of the gear, including the fragile lighting and sound equipment and computers that run the scenery automation, travel in custom-made road boxes built by Staging Production, Inc. in Philadelphia. Each individual department determines what each box must do for them then they are constructed to meet those specific needs.

“They’re like gigantic egg cartons. Even the dragon has a box,” admits Widmann. “And yet, some equipment gets packed up like you might move your house with plenty of bubble wrap and packing tape. The costumes travel hanging in protective ‘gondolas’ with lights built into the boxes which also house the clothes during the run of the show.”

The deck for the Broadway production was raked (inclined toward the audience) and the added height hid additional mechanics below the stage. The San Francisco deck, however, is only 10 1/4 inches high, so they had to find creative ways to make some of the machines portable in order to deliver the same effects. The show proscenium, which sets the look of the stage, was made especially to fit inside the Orpheum Theatre’s existing proscenium. It weighs about 10,000 pounds and is a complicated piece to break down, move and re-assemble.

Many of the Wicked set pieces are quite large yet delicate, particularly the spiky steel-and-LED backdrop to the ‘One Short Day’ number in the show. It needs to be carefully disassembled and packed. Of the tens of thousands of pounds of equipment, especially challenging to move are the service trusses that house dimmers for the electrics, wiring and cable, and the board automation racks that control all the movement of the scenery.

“Those two units weigh around 10 to 12 thousand pounds each and they have to be hung from the grid in order to keep them off the show deck so they don’t take up space,” explains Bell. “They are very complicated to hang, and then everything has to be cabled from there when you are putting it up and when you are taking it down you have to pull all that cable back.”

Bell has a crew of eight dedicated to this Wicked production and they determine what labor will be needed for each of their departments to load the show out of one theatre and into another. It is then the responsibility of the local theatre to hire the crew. Clark Transfer is the show’s preferred trucking company with their “air-ride” suspension for cushier travel, floor to ceiling logistic tracks and interior lighting. To move the show out of the Pantages in Los Angeles and into the trucks took a total of 21 hours. Eighteen trailers were loaded and cruised the 375 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Bell scheduled five full days (up to 16 hours a day) to load into the Orpheum. Forty-five IATSE Union stagehands are hired—18 carpenters, six of whom are certified riggers needed to properly hang scenic elements, 14 electricians, six for Props, and seven in Sound.

“The first thing the local house does is do an orientation with the local crew, divides them into each department and reviews the general rules,” says Bell. “The locals do most of the work under the direction of the Wicked crew. Since the show has been in San Francisco before, most of these guys understand what needs to be done for Wicked.”

Unlike most theatres around the country, the Orpheum does not have a loading dock. When the trucks arrived, the crew has to off-load at street level then roll or carry in the precious cargo. The only other adaptation made for the Orpheum is to the floor. “This production has all of the traps that Broadway has,” insists Bell. “We have to cut holes in the deck for traps that are integral to the story telling. The traps are the only thing we have to modify at the theatre for this production.”

Once everything is off the trucks, loaded in and set up, the crew has two days of ‘dry tech’ time before the actors arrive. According to Bell, “a dry tech is when every piece of scenery is moved around the set in the way it is suppose to move during the show to assure that it doesn’t get stuck and that the timing is correct. Since it was the first time we’ve moved this production we wanted to make sure we had enough time in case there was a problem with a piece of scenery to assure the safety of the actors before they get on stage.”

As the crew sets up and techs the show, the production’s musical conductor and 17 local musicians come together for the first time in the theatre lobby to run through the score. Meanwhile, after the principal actors have rehearsed in New York, the full cast convenes in a San Francisco studio for two 8-hour days of rehearsal. Then they move in to the Orpheum for four days on stage to fine tune with the technical elements. This rehearsal time provides the local stagehands, musicians and dressers their only opportunity to learn the show. There are actually only two full dress rehearsals—with the complete orchestra, costumes and makeup. Then, finally, everyone has one day off before the engagement begins.

It is complex, precise work, and physically demanding. If all goes as planned, the audience will be swept up in the spectacle unaware of the highly choreographed move and non-stop behind-the-scenes action leading up to the downbeat for the first performance.

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