Props Gallery - Rosieres Stove
Rosieres Stove
Rosieres woodburning stove built in thin plywood,
redwood, foam and epoxy reinforced glass fibre,
for Raymond Gubbay's production of Puccini's
"La Boheme" at the Albert Hall, London.
My brief was to build a stove that appeared to be lit
and burning, but when the door was opened and
"Rodolfo" threw pages from his latest drama into the fire
it would flare up like a real fire.
The stove also had to be completely self contained
as it had to be removed from the stage very quickly
it would be impossible to connect lights etc.
to external sources.
Being in the Albert Hall, and in the round,
the effect had to be larger than life.
To achieve this I built in 3 par 16 parcans (birdies)
connected to 12 volt lead acid batteries and each
one controlled by pulse width modulation speed
controllers which themselves were radio controlled
by an off-stage stage manager.
The first lamp shone a red light onto a variable speed
mirror wheel at the rear of the stove which gave a
flickering glow through the front door of the stove.
The other two lamps gave a strong amber light
through the front and top grills of the stove.
The stove also contained a "tiny fogger" miniature
smoke machine again powered by a 12 volt lead acid
battery and operated by radio control.
There was also a 12 volt computer fan, again radio
controlled which could be used to boost the smoke
flow from within the stove.
All the above gave an infinite number of variations
to the fire effect.
Designer; Peter J. Davison.