Plaza Theatre Co.'s Chitty car a machine of wonder

Aug. 22—Automobiles frequently fill the parking lot at Plaza Theatre Co., but hardly ever does anybody drive one around inside the actual theater.

That changed with last week's opening of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," which runs through Sept. 10.

Quite a car it is.

"Probably the most elaborate set piece we've ever had for one of our shows, certainly one of the coolest," Plaza Artistic Director JaceSon Barrus said.

Thank Cleburne resident and Plaza supporter Kendall Heaps for those cool and elaborate aspects.

"He did it all," Barrus said. "This was all him. We're constantly in production as to thinking about what's coming up show wise to stay ahead of things. But Kendall came to us a little further ahead of time from when we were planning on the car for "Chitty." He said he'd like to be involved and we said, 'Yes, definitely.'"

Heaps' daughter, Madison Heaps, often acts in Plaza productions and serves as the theater's stage manager in addition to prop and set dressing duties.

"Last year, when they announced this year's season of shows, I asked Madison who was going to build the "Chitty" car," Kendall Heaps said. "She said she didn't know and it just kind of evolved from there."

The 1968 film starring Dick Van Dyke holds a special place in Kendall Heaps' heart.

"When I was a kid and the movie came out I went and saw it with my sister," Heaps said. "I made a big impact on me. I always loved the movie and it's one of the things, if not the most important thing, that got me interested in cars as well as building things and mechanical stuff. I always thought, 'Gee, I wish I could build a Chitty car.' Then this year, the opportunity came along and I said, 'OK. I'm going to do it.'"

Heaps, Barrus said, has constructed various set pieces for previous Plaza shows though never anything quite so grand.

Admiring the Chitty car on the Plaza stage last week, Barrus was obviously well chuffed.

"I tell you, just looking at it you can tell how gorgeous it is and the details involved," Barrus said. "It moves throughout the show. The actors actually drive it around."

Certain mechanical aspects of the car are self contained while others are remotely operated.

A lifelong car fanatic, Heaps calls the Porsche 356 his dream sweetheart car but for now makes do with his 1957 T-bird and Volkswagen, which he jokingly refers to as the poor man's Porsche.

Designed by Ken Adams, the original Chitty car — actually several were made for the film — was built by the Ford Motor Car racing team in 1967.

One of those sold to film director Peter Jackson, best known for the "Lord of the Rings" films and recent "Get Back" Beatles documentary — for $805,000 in 2011.

The journey from idea to reality for the Plaza Chitty car took about six months, Heaps said.

"At the start I mainly searched online for any information I could find about the original car and then any other cars that had been built for stage plays of the show," Heaps said. "There really wasn't much information out there. That kind of gave me a lump in my throat because I just assumed I was going to find good plans and work off that. But that never happened.

"I realized pretty soon I was going to have to wing it."

Undaunted, Heaps purchased a small model of the car online which, according to reviews, is fairly accurate to the original.

"I used that to come up with my own scale for the Plaza car," Heaps said. "I knew there's a hallway in Plaza 4 feet wide they use to move set pieces on and off stage so that set my dimensions for the car."

It started with a metal frame base.

"Onto that we have four caster wheels on each corner and then there's another frame with hinges on the back that sits on that," Heaps said. "Then there's an airbag in front.

"The body, all the electronics and everything is attached to the top frame. So, when the airbag deploys, the car lifts about 17 inches up off the ground."

A heavy duty wheelchair control with a joystick mounted to the bottom frame controls the car's movements.

"Everything else is controlled from the booth," Heaps said. "The wheels turning, lights, the horn."

An air tank controls the lift of the car and deployment of the wings from both sides.

Heaps' wife, Toni Heaps, lent a hand with the car's upholstery and other features.

"She's helped with other props as well," Heaps said. "I had done the horses for their production of "Cinderella" and some other small things, but nothing like this."

Heaps kept Barrus and company updated throughout planning and construction.

"He sent pictures periodically," Barrus said. It was, 'Oh, that looks great,' but the work-in-progress pictures never did it full justice. But when we got it here, it was like, 'Oh my God!'"

Building the car proved a blast and a challenge, Heaps said.

"I really enjoyed it," Heaps said. "But there were a lot of setbacks of things I thought was going to work, but then I did it and they didn't so I had to go back and re-engineer and redo it."

The original casters on the bottom frame, for example, were undersized causing the wheelchair to struggle in moving the car.

"So I had to order heavy-duty, zero throw casters and take my welder up to the theater to cut the old ones off and put on the new," Heaps said.

All was well that ended well in the end.

"The setbacks were a little frustrating," Heaps said. "But I was real happy with the way it turned out."

All the same, Heaps spent many a late night during the two weeks running up to the show's opening testing and retesting the car to ensure everything was good to go.

The car will see life beyond Plaza's production of "Chitty."

"Other theaters throughout the country stage 'Chitty,'" Barrus said. "So our plan is to make it available for rental. We already do that consistently with some of our other pieces like the carriage from "Cinderella" and plant from "Little Shop of Horrors.""

Which lent additional challenges to construction of the car.

"Most show props last 30 days or whatever then they're taken apart or reconfigured into something else for another show," Heaps said. "This, since they're planning to lease it to other theaters for other productions of 'Chitty,' had to be durable. Others may not give it the TLC it's going to get at Plaza so I knew it had to be durable and kind of rough, tumble and bulletproof."

Plaza's Chitty car, Barrus said, passes with flying colors on all counts.

A 1964 book penned by Ian Fleming — the same guy who wrote the James Bond books — inspired the 1968 film and in turn subsequent stage plays.

"We love the Chitty car and we're really looking forward to performing the play," Barrus said. "It's a great show and it's one we've never done before."

For tickets and other information, visit plaza-theatre.com or call 817-202-0600.