[1] A wing is a double frame of wood covered with painted canvas and set to stand as this book will when its covers are opened at right angles to each other.

The Wood Set consists of a drop painted to represent the interior of a wood or forest, with wings painted in the same style.  It is used for knock-about acts, clown acts, bicycle acts, animal turns and other acts that require a deep stage and can play in this sort of scene.

The Palace Set, with its drop and wings, is painted to represent the interior of a palace.  It is used for dancing acts, acrobats and other acts that require a deep stage and can appropriately play in a palace scene.

3.  The Box Sets

A “box set” is, as the name implies, a set of scenery that is box-shaped.  It represents a room seen through the fourth wall, which has been removed.  Sometimes with a, ceiling-piece, but almost invariably with “borders”—­which are painted canvas strips hanging in front of the “border-lights” to mask them and keep the audience from seeing the ropes and pulleys hanging from the gridiron—­the box set more nearly mimics reality than the open set, which calls upon the imagination of the audience to supply the realities that are entirely lacking or only hinted at.

The painted canvas units which are assembled to make the box set are called “flats.”  A flat is a wooden frame about six feet six inches wide and from twelve to eighteen feet long, covered with canvas and, of course, painted with any scene desired.  It differs from a wing in being only one-half the double frame; therefore it cannot stand alone.

Upon the upper end of each flat along the unpainted outer edge there is fastened a rope as long as the flat.  Two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the corresponding edge of the matching flat there is a “cleat,” or metal strip, into which the rope, or “lash-line” is snapped.  The two flats are then drawn tight together so that their edges match evenly and the lash-line is lashed through the framework to hold the flats firmly together.

While one flat may be a painted wall, the next may contain a doorway and door, another a part of an ornamental arch, and still another a window, so, when the various flats are assembled and set, the box set will have the appearance of a room containing doors and windows and even ornamental arches.  The most varied scenes can thus be realistically set up.

In the rear of open doors there are usually wings, or perhaps flats, [1] painted to represent the walls of hallways and adjoining rooms and they are called “interior backings.”  Behind a door supposed to open out into the street or behind windows overlooking the country, there are hung, or set, short drops or wings painted to show parts of a street, a garden, or a country-side, and these are called “exterior backings.”

[1] When flats are used as backings they are made stable by the use of the stage-brace, a device made of wood and capable of extension, after the manner of the legs of a camera tripod.  It is fitted with double metal hooks on one end to hook into the wooden cross-bar on the back of the flat and with metal eyes on the other end through which stage-screws are inserted and screwed into the floor of the stage.