Slote or Sloat (Hoist in America, Cassette in France), form of trap for raising a long narrow piece of scenery-a groundrow, for example-from below to stage level, or for carrying an actor up or down from the stage. It appears that the slote was already standard equipment at Drury Lane as early as 1843, and in The Orange Girl, by H. T. Leslie and N. Rowe, produced at the Surrey Theatre in 1864, there are elaborate stage directions for the conveyance of the heroine by a slote from a height downwards to a trap.
Since the slote is also referred to as a ‘slide’ one of its variants may have been the Corsican Trap (see TRAPS). To allow free passage to the slote the floor-board above it was divided vertically, each half dropping and being pulled to the side of the stage by ropes, leaving an opening in the stage floor.
On occasion a cloth might be attached to the base of a groundrow and be drawn up from its rolled position in a Slote Box below by means of lines from the grid. It would thus unroll as the groundrow rose in the air, for instance during a transformation scene. With two slotes set in each of three sections of the stage, the elements of six separate scenes could be raised from below to stage level.
How to cite this entry: "Slote" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 17 February 2012
