Theater drapes and stage curtains

Many are made from black or other darkly colored, light-absorbing material (In North America, for example, heavyweight velour is the current industry standard[1]).

Theater drapes represent a portion of any production's soft goods, a category comprising any non-wardrobe, cloth-based element of the stage or scenery.

[2] Theater curtains are often pocketed at the bottom to hold weighty chain or to accept pipes to remove their fullness and stretch them tight.

They can be pleated or flat; can part in the centre; can be drawn upwards, sideways, or diagonally; and can fly out, gather out, or roll out.

"Hard" teasers and tormentors are typically constructed with a wooden frame faced with thin plywood and dark colored, light-absorbing material like velour.

The teaser is usually hung from a dedicated batten so that its height can be independently adjusted to optimize the masking of the fly system and its loads.

They're used to frame the sides of the acting space as well as to mask the wings, where actors and set pieces may be preparing to enter the stage.

Tabs, also known as up-and-downers (UK) or Germans, are drapes hung perpendicular to the proscenium and at the sides, used to more completely mask the wings than legs.

The drop is rolled onto it from the back, and is deployed by rope rigged through blocks (pulleys) to be pulled from offstage to release the tension holding the batten up, thus unrolling it slowly until completely unfurled.

A cyclorama, or cyc for short, is a large curtain, often concave, at the back of the stage that can be lit to represent the sky or other backgrounds.

This was done in a general sense in the 1910s and 1920s by means of painted glass plates in front of lighting instruments, which made sculptured shadows on the cyc to indicate such images as a cityscape or a scary dungeon.

Lighting instruments (generally ellipsoidals) may also be used to project scenic effects on cycs and scrims, by using gobos, also known as templates or patterns.

They are often designed to descend automatically when a holding line is cut or a winch brake released with a minimum of operator effort.