[SML] Mopping Marley

[Stephen Litterst]

On 12/14/14 5:31 PM, Randy Storms via Stagecraft wrote:
> *sigh* Nutcracker season again..  One of the (70-odd) dancers took a
> spill last night, and someone from the production blamed it on the
> Marley being too *dry*.  Is this a thing?  If so, it's
> counter-intuitive.  Anyway, they asked us to delay mopping the dance
> floor until one hour prior to performance, so that it would still be
> "not damp, but not dry, either."  I've heard of mopping with a coke
> solution to increase traction (we will not be doing this) but I've
> always believed the pre-show mopping of the Marley was to get it clean,
> not to deliberately moisten it for better traction.

Mopping the marley is for the sake of cleaning it.  A wet marley is 
actually slicker than a dry one, so someone was just trying to help the 
dancer save face.

If they need more traction, you can do the coke trick or use a 
liquid-rosin-compound like Slip-No-Mor.  I'm not a big fan of Coke, I 
think it's too sticky and makes the marley get dirty fast. Slip-no-mor 
is expensive (~$70 per gallon), but it's concentrated so much that a 
gallon will last you a few hundred moppings.

We tend to mop at half-hour, after the on-stage warmup class.  Then we 
wrap towels around our dust mop and dry the curtain line so we can close 
the curtain and open house.

Just loaded out our first Nut of the year.  As they closed up the truck 
the lift-gate broke.  At least everything was loaded.

Steve L.
-- 
Stephen Litterst            Technical Operations Supervisor
litterst at udel.edu           Mitchell Hall
302/831-0601                University of Delaware