What is the cost of one of those huge curtains in front of the stage at Broadway theatrical theaters?
I realize that there must be a large range in costs of these huge curtains.
But I couldn’t guess within a power of ten and I have been wondering about this for years of theater going.
So, even a rough educated estimate of the average cost would be welcome.
What height are you looking at? I found plenty of ten-foot stage curtains on eBay for under $200.
Yes, depends on size. figure and average of $20/sq yd so your basic curtain costs appx $5000
But if you want extras (ie: lining and fringe) it’ll cost more
The ave main rag (as it’s called) lasts 15 - 20 yrs depending
mc
Lots of Broadway productions nowadays don’t use the old stage curtains. There’s either an empty stage, or a scrim, usually designed so you can see through it when it’s backlit.
It was kinda late last night when I answered (and I’d had a couple) so my post was a little vague. I should have said you basic grand drape starts at $5000 and can go for as much as $100k depending on how fancy you get.
This website can give an explanation of all the different considerations that will go into your main rag (or any other stage curtain)
and this page has a nice breakdown of the costs of different projects
mc
When I was a kid, some idiots hiding on the balcony of our school auditorium smoking held a match to on of the velour window curtains. It went up incredibly fast, burned a hole in the ceiling. When the smoke settled, the fire department made the school take down all the curtains until they were treated with fire retardant. Since they were likely more than 35 years old, there was some concern whether they would survive the treatment - but the made it back to be hung just before the big school play.
At the time, early 70’s, for a decent sized school stage, they were kicking around numbers of about $20,000 to $30,000. Within a few years later, after I graduated, they were completely replaced. (30 or 40 feet wide with plenty of pleats, 20+ feet high, valences, side curtains, backdrop curtain, etc…)
$20/sq yd seems pretty low for this sort of thing - lined, very heavy, velour, with very strong light-blocking qualities; not your standard cotton - but a quick google finds that the range seems to be as you said, $17 to $27 (a yard?) for 60" wide fabrics.
Whether they visibly use them or not in any specific show, the curtains are still there. They are expensive to remove & replace, so they are just moved offstage if not used in a show.
And even though they no longer use candles or gaslights or even high-temp incandescent lights on stage, the old regulations requiring ‘fire curtains’ are generally still in force between the stage & audience.
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but since fire has been mentioned twice. . .
Traditionally, stage curtains are made from velour; and up until relatively recently, that meant cotton. Two things to know about cotton is that it is not inherently flame retardant (IFR) and it has a property that advertisers like to call breath-ability. Since it is not IFR it needs to be treated with a flame retardant, often some salt such as a solution of boric acid. It is well known that this retardant solution does not withstand repeated laundering, but since most theaters hang their rags and forget them (they are certainly rarely if ever laundered) people often think the flame retardant remains forever. This is where the breath-ability comes in. When the relative humidity of the theater rises the curtains will absorb moisture and when the humidity falls, exude moisture. This cycle of absorbing and exuding moisture will over time leech the salts out of the curtains. So when md2000’s “friends” put a match to them they will go up in flames (and go up fast!) Nowadays most theater velour is a synthetic blend which is IFR so it wont hold a flame - but it will melt. For these reasons the grand drape is not used as the “fire curtain”
Many theaters do have a fire curtain. It is usually a flat fiberglass (used to be asbestos) impregnated “curtain” that will be just “upstage” of the proscenium opening - but in front of the drape. But there is no clear and consistent regulation requiring this. I am not a fire marshal - or even an expert on fire regulations, but I have spent almost 30 yrs dealing with them in many states, and let me tell you. . .it’s complicated. the codes vary from state to state and sometimes county to county.
For some reason, many fire codes consider the “stage house” and the “auditorium” to be two separate buildings with a common wall. And, contrary to common sense, most fire codes are not designed primarily with human safety in mind; they are to prevent surrounding structures from catching fire. The fire curtain acts to seal the big hole in the common wall of the two structures to keep the fire contained. In crowded cities the building are close together and so a fire in one is a hazard to others.
So, in some jurisdictions, if the theater is a stand alone structure with no other structures that will be in jeopardy, the fire curtain is not required.
That’s prob more than anyone wants to know about stage curtains and fire. . .
mc
That’s because they were originally written by insurance companies. Keeping them from having to pay for other buildings that burned down was a primary goal.
IIRC - wasn’t the fire curtain a harbinger back to the days of extremely flammable lights (limelights, etc.)? Add to that building substantially made out of wood, and isolating a fire to the stage side of the building would at least allow the audience a bit more time to get out or crush each other trying.
(There’s the story about how the Rolling Stones’ Altamont(?) appearance got too rowdy and the theatre people wanted to drop the fire curtain and keep the band safe. When Jagger was told to move back so they could drop the curtain, he moved forward. )
Our school was built sometime around 1948 - not sure if velour curtains were fireproofed in those days, but they hadn’t been removed AFAIK for 30-plus years when some idiots decided to test their fire-retardant properties. At that point the fire department made them treat them, and there was some concern whether curtains that old would survive the dipping process. (I imagine the wet curtains have a lot more weight and must be handled very carefully until dried, and the old fabric would be very fragile.)
No, that was an outdoor concert at Altamont Speedway Racetrack in California. It was an outdoor stage constructed at the racetrack – there were no curtains like in a regular theatre building.
Yes, theaters and fire have a long fabled relationship. The is no data, however that theaters experience fires anymore often than other structures, but up until the advent of the highrise, theaters were the only structures that routinely held hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people, so their fires were spectacularly dangerous to life.
The fire curtain came into existence in London in 1794 at the Drury Lane theater, and was quickly adopted into British building codes. This first fire curtain was literally a flying section of wall; steel clad and filled with concrete.
In the US, there were no official building codes until the twentieth century, but most theaters adopted the British traditions. . .kind of.
Two of the most infamous theater fires: The Brooklyn theater in 1876 and Iroquois theater in 1903, for example, had fire curtains that were either not working or not used.
I had not heard that insurance companies were involved in building and fire codes (tho I’m not surprised) and lo and behold a little googling gives us this
That is slightly unfair. The companies ran fire departments not just to prevent payouts, but also because customers didn’t like having their buildings burnt down.