Sweeping Staircase for "Born Yesterday" at the Guthrie Theater.

 Todd Rosenthal designed the Guthrie Theater set and needed a curved sweeping staircase to follow a curved wall. Their solution was to use gates, an old theater convention for stairs. Here are the gate I built in their shop:

Front View

 

Rear View

And here is the staircase in the trial assembly, freestanding and weight bearing:

The wall follows an arc with radius just over 18', and the treads are cut to strike radius lines at the front of the tread. The lowest two treads receive added decorative work, and then I passed the project on for finishing.

Stage installation, pre-paint and without rail: