The Chicago Flyhouse, Inc.

The Pursuit of Safety

Founded in 1955 as an amateur outdoor summer theatre at the University of Chicago, Court Theater built its current  home, the intimate 251-seat Abelson Auditorium, in 1981— without safety standards that exist today.  With that in mind, venue staff contacted Flyhouse in January 2024 about updating their facility to comply with modern fall protection standards.

During our assessment of the facility, as our team moved from contracting to design, we quickly discovered that a typical fall protection system would not work for the building. Potential fall protection loads exceeded the building’s capacity. As always, the Flyhouse team was up to the challenge. We spent many months, and several rounds of engineering reviews, to design a solution that would work within the existing building structure.

Tapping into Flyhouse’s expertise in custom equipment, our team worked with building engineers to craft custom wall mounts and installed supplementary supports, all of which were needed to transfer the loads from the existing exterior walls to the roof beams to provide much-needed fall protection.

COURT THEATER BY THE NUMBERS:

  • 2,250 SF area needed fall protection

  • 20 months of design and engineering

  • 160 custom anchorage points fabricated

  • 112 ten-inch long bore holes required onsite

  • 500 linear feet of lifelines installed

As we wrap up this project in the coming weeks, Court Theater will turn it's focus to the 2026-27 season kicking off in December—an exploration of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit—with the peace of mind that comes with a new, custom Flyhouse rigging system. That’s how we fly!