the barrier between AUDIENCE and STAGE

In most theatres there are incredibly well defined locations and a "normal" understanding of the non-physical separations between... the audience sits in nice (sometimes plush) seats, the stage is an open end of the room, and these two entwined worlds are forever linked yet separate. There's something cozy about being in an audience... there's something safe. And while I work in many such venues, and enjoy that symbiosis immensely, I have to admit to a degree of... artistic titillation ... in the breaking of, or at least redefining, those definitions. I've always been particularly energized when the set can reach out and physically embrace an audience, surround them, interest them in a way that is unusual. It forces an audience to reexamine their role in the process... are they meant to "be" in the location of the play? will they (gasp!) be expected to actively participate in some way?

I think that this is one of the reasons I respond so strongly to the Hypocrites' production of PIRATES OF PENZANCE (which I've written about twice now). By allowing an audience full-range roaming capabilities, it seems to intrigue some audience while alienating others... it's,  in some ways, a really curious social experiment.

I've watched the audience enter... and most of them, upon entering... smile... and then the wave of confusion hits.... as to why there ARE NO CHAIRS!!  across the space they see a tiki-bar selling drinks, and next to them a long bamboo coat-rack where they can deposit their winterwear. The cast is already onstage throughout the space, jamming with whatever instruments suits them in the moment, inviting them to sing along, handing out the occasional lei or pair of sunglasses. there are benches in some corners, and a scattering of picnic tables with kiddie pools atop them, with rubber duckies in them. It's a peculiar abstraction of a tropical beach with mis-matched beige carpet standing in for sand,  a mountain of beachballs in one corner, twinkling lights racing overhead and a pier, dotted with tiki-torches jutting diagonally thru the space with 70s lawnchairs bolted on one end (to allow some audience a permanent perch). the walls and support posts of this strange basement are painted a bright nautical blue.

Of COURSE, it's a strange world to enter... that's the point! A world where milquetoast pirates comically attack a band of maids and are rebuffed by the lie that their father, a Major General, is an orphan?!?! who writes this stuff!!!! Mabel, a operatic soprano, accompanying herself on a banjo?!? a Major General who wears footed pajamas with military medals and duckie slippers?!? The physical world matches the lunacy of the world created by the writers. And by allowing the audience to experience it ON THEIR OWN TERMS and to their own level of physical willingness to be participants in this world... it's utter madness, and frankly we need more that in theatre, and in life.

Deja Vu... again... and again, deja vu

Another day of dueling techs, Pirates in Wicker Park, and as for number 2...

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: a radio play
based on Frank Capra's classic film
American Theatre Company, Chicago

Jason Gerace - director
Set by Yours Truly
Costumes by Christine Pascual
Lighting by Mac Vaughey

THE STORY
It's somewhere in the 1940s, and a radio company is about to do it's annual Christmastime tradition, mounting a radio play of the story IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, with the regular audience stepping "back in time" as the live radio audience. There are 7 actors who voice all the roles by stepping up to microphones and using the scripts in hand to tell the story. There's also an onstage pianist, and a foley artist creating all the sound effects, just like they would have done back in the 40s.

The story of WONDERFUL LIFE is a classic... George Bailey, facing personal/business disaster makes a wish that he'd never been born, and his guardian angel shows him what life would have been like for everyone in his hometown of Bedford Falls if he'd never existed. He learns how much and how many people's lives he's touched, and in so doing, learns about the value of a life well led, and how "a man who has friends is truly rich".

This is the 7th year for this remount. It's now on it's the third director (Marty Higgenbotham and Damon Kiely took the first four years), it's the fourth (or perhaps 5th) costume designer, and the third lighting designer. The casts have changed throughout the years, but the set has stayed, aesthetically, the same. This particular physical set is now 4 years old, and is starting to show a bit of wear, however the basic idea and concept of the set has remained the same throughout.

Even though it's the 7th year of my involvement, it's the 10th year that ATC has mounted it. The first three years they did it for just a couple nights on a bare stage, but back in '03 the then-artistic-director  of the company decided to make it part of the regular season and run it for a few weeks, and it was WILDLY popular then, and ever since.

The conceit is simple, the costumes are pretty but not difficult to find, the story is familiar, but not, (perhaps) as cloying as yet another production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Frankly, the hardest thing about the show is the sound effects, and there are a  LOT of them. and trying to keep the look properly 1940s can involve a lot of odd things for the foley artist*.

*a foley artist is a guy (or nowadays even a gal) who creates the sound effects near a microphone to augment the level of the sound. They were vital in the golden age of radio, and are still prevalent today, but mainly in the film industry... watch the credits at the end of the next film you see, and you'll come across a listing for a foley artist and his/her staff. They have to be quick, efficient, and very creative in coming up with ways to create effects using sometimes strange materials... i.e. the sound of footsteps in snow can been created quite efficiently by lightly crunching popcorn down into a shallow dish, or footsteps in autumn leaves by crunching cornflakes the same way). Tom Keith (Garrison Keillor's foley master for Prairie Home Companion) recently died.

Anyhow, getting back to LIFE...

The idea of the set is pulled from research of radio studios in the 40s, but is made a little warmer and homier by using rich, warm wood tones, and holiday decorations... as if they've spruced up the studio for  Christmas. The furniture is stuff you saw in a period interior... conceptually we were trying to meld the visual notions of  "radio studio" and "grandma's sitting room". On the right side of the pictures you can see the raised platform with a guy sitting at a table and he's surrounded by doo-hickeys and things.. yep... he's the foley artist.

Overall, it's been interesting to see how each director has altered the approach to the story and the experience, and how each has interacted and have asked for slight changes to the set, even though the basic concept has remained the same. Marty had us create a 40s living room installation (with a full-sized period radio) in the lobby, and they sold special "living room seats" to a group of folk who wouldn't be in the theatre, but would sit in the lobby and hear the performance broadcast to the radio in the lobby... while being served milk and homemade cookies. Damon really invested in the personal journey of Mary and George as  being a struggle, Jason (the current director) is playing up the comedy in different and surprisingly touching ways. All three were (and are) excellent, but the tonality and the small touches make each director's viewpoint shift, and each is unique. To me, it's far more exciting than watching the movie.


Am attaching a couple more PIRATES pic here...It's a REALLY challenging space to photograph, but I wanted to share a couple views.

off on a tangent... kinda...

I was recently asked to write a blog post for Northlight Theatre, Chicago. I'm currently designing their spring 2012 production of Jeffrey Hatcher's TEN CHIMNEYS.  You can check out that post here....

http://northlight.mighty-site.com/blog/designing-from-life#more-926

It made me think about one thing I've not covered yet in these posts... the fact that I'm always at work on multiple projects, not one at a time, the way the blog posts might suggest.

At this very moment, I'm sitting in the basement of the Chopin Theatre in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, watching re-staging/re- teching of The Hypcorites' production of THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. Earlier today I was at a run of American Theatre Company's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE : a live radio play. After I get home late this evening, I'm going to be working on the model for SHAKESPEARE ABRIDGED for Milwaukee Rep (opening in January), and in the morning will be dropping off the preliminary drafting for Northwestern University Opera's DIE FLEDERMAUS (opening in February), and I'll have a week before needing to have a preliminary draft of TEN CHIMNEYS for Northlight (which goes up in March). That same day, I'll be receiving the script for one of the projects I'm doing at Actors Theatre Louisville in early April for the Humana Festival of New American Plays (the ANTHOLOGY play, titled, OH GASTRONOMY!) The following afternoon, we'll be having the first design meeting for AN ACTOR PREPARES, the professionally-directed show we're mounting at University of Chicago to open the new Logan Arts Center (late-April), and for which I'll be designing set and lights.

.... and all of this is on top of my regular day-job teaching and advising students at University of Chicago.

It can all seem a little overwhelming at times, (and a little sleep-deprived too) but honestly I wouldn't be happy otherwise. I've found over the course of teaching there these past 6+ years, that these two halves of my professional self feed and support each other in both direct and indirect ways. By continuing to work as a professional-- I can demonstrate, first hand, the concepts, and points of process that I'm trying to instill in my students, and by showing them some of the cool things I'm up to outside the classroom, I've found that the students respect my input more  (i.e. that I don't fall into that frustrating category of "...those who can't .. teach"... an adage I find utterly loathsome). My professional design work also gives me an artistic outlet that the school can't easily support.

what can I say, I'm a lucky guy.... now if I could just get more sleep....

I feel... like I've been here before....

and I have....

PIRATES OF PENZANCE, or the slave of duty

Adapted by Sean Graney and Kevin O’Donnell after Gilbert and Sullivan

The Hypcorites @ Chopin Basement

Directed by Sean Graney

Set by Yours Truly

Costumes by Alison Siple

Lighting by Jared Moore

Sound by Mischa Fiksel

THE STORY

When a boy, Frederick was accidentally apprenticed to a PIRATE band rather than a PILOT by his short-of-hearing nurserymaid, Ruth, who has followed him into the pirate life. Today is the day he turns 21, and thus ends his apprenticeship. As he abhors the pirate life he declares he will leave it, and will be forced to hunt down his former comrades, as a righteous citizen and man of England.  Ruth endeavors to go with him as his betrothed, and the pirate band is hopeful of her departure, while Frederick says he’ll marry her, if she is indeed a fine-looking woman. But upon seeing a bevy of young ladies, he rejects Ruth, and falls for the lovely Mabel. Her sisters are nabbed by the pirates and are claimed as brides, but their capture is interrupted by the arrival of the aged Major General, their father, who falsely claims he’s an orphan and the pirates, all orphans themselves, relent in their pillaging.

Act 2 finds the General troubled by his lie, and wandering through his grounds in his nightclothes. Frederick, who is soon to become his son-in-law, has organized a group of policemen to exterminate the pirates, but is informed by the Pirate King and Mabel that his birthday, which falls on FEB 29^th, means that his indentures actually will not end until he reaches his 21^st BIRTHDAY, not simply when he is 21 years old, meaning that technically he will be apprenticed until he’s 84 years old. They appeal to his sense of DUTY, and he succumbs, and becomes a pirate once again, but first he says goodbye to Mabel, and asks that she wait for him. The ineffectual police are captured by the pirates, but appeal to the pirates’ sense of patriotism and charge them submit in the name of their Queen (i.e. Victoria), which they do. Mabel then rushes in announcing that all of the pirates are actually members of the House of Peers, and the Major General relents, allowing his daughters to marry the now-former pirates.

Needless to say, it’s all whole mess of silliness, and has some wonderfully fun songs.

THE PRODUCTION

Originally, it was written as a diversion for the upper classes during the Victorian Era, and was a not-so-subtle satire of English mores.  Our director, Sean wanted to make it more fun, frolicsome and contemporary, and trust me, this show is NOT for the Gilbert and Sullivan purists out there.  Instead of a full orchestra, our production has been rewritten for 6 guitars, a banjo, clarinet, accordion, ukulele, mandolin,  trumpet, accordion, harmonica, spoons and a washboard. These instruments are all played by the actors, IN SCENE and DURING action. It has the feel of a comically chic indie-folk band. The clothing is a wacky mish-mash of late 1950’s swimsuits, and bits of  multi-period styles, (i.e. The Major General’s nightclothes in act2 are an adult –sized footed pajama-set with military epaulettes and ribbons, finished of with plush ducky slippers).

The set is a strange abstraction-- consisting of a pier cutting diagonally across the open room sitting atop mis-matched beige carpet scraps (looking a bit like a sandbar) round picnic tables topped with kiddie pools rubberduckies, and drink coolers dotting the floor. One corner has a curtain, something like a ship sail, with DUTY in big red letters stenciled across it, and another corner with a HUGE pile (like 150) beachballs. The walls of the theatre are painted a deep blue-green, and the ceiling is strung with Christmas and boardwalk lights, and tiki torches.

One of the reviews last year referred to it a “warped parrot-headed resort”... I really kinda liked that description of it.

There are a few benches, and lawn chairs about, but it’s intended that the audience is ambulatory, and free to walk about the space so that they can watch the show as it unfolds all over the space. This type of show, often called a “promenade production”, forces the audience into interacting with the space and action in very direct ways than a normal show. The actors are staged all over the space throughout the show, and the audience learns quickly how to move about to NOT be in the spotlight.

Speaking of which, this is what’s called a REMOUNT. We did it last year about this time, and it was SO successful, that the company decided to bring it back again. They brought back most of the cast and the entire design team. The set, after the last production, was purposely put in storage, as were props, costumes and some lighting equipment, specifically for this purpose.

Think of it this way… it’s cheaper to produce this time, as rehearsal time doesn’t need to be as long,  and there isn’t as much of the direct outlay of funds, as per last time. It’s kinda like having a “redo”… we now get to change some of the things in staging and design that we didn’t have the time or funds to finish off properly last time. Also, it’s SUCH a fun group of people to work with, and it’s such a fun and lighthearted show. And its’ NOT yet another Christmas show.

We've made a few adjustments this time around... the "wall of beachballs" is bigger, and we're adding a tiki bar with coconut-bra-wearing bartenders in one corner of the room where fruity drinks will be sold during the show. It runs into January, and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who needs a 90-minute summertime frolic of diversion during Chicago’s already chilly December.

OK.. so I'm human... and yes, SEX sells....

This entry SHOULD have been posted over a month ago.  In my defense, as I was designing set, lights AND sound, and thus was rather actively BUSY during tech, I think I could be forgiven for not posting AS IT WAS HAPPENING, but as there’s been over a month since…  I have little recourse but to flog myself with the nearest wet noodle.

This one was an interesting show, and one of the strongest I’ve seen here at University of Chicago where I teach. It’s…

SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO by David Mamet

Directed by Audrey Francis

Set, lights and sound by Yours Truly

Costumes by Nate Rohr

THE STORY: Told in very quick rapid-fire-dialogue scenes (there are 37 scenes and the show is less than 80 minutes long), and set in Chicago in 1976, a young office-worker guy who has a misogynistic alpha-type co-worker, meets, falls in love, moves in with, fights with and ultimately splits from a nice young independent girl who has an equally caustic friend of her own. Depending on how you choose to stage it, it can be an indictment of “sleep with them first, ask questions later” mentality of the younger generation before the AIDS scare changed the social landscape, or it can be a simple story of two who begin to find love only to be driven apart by the negativity of those around them. There are a myriad other legitimate interpretations, but that’s how I choose to read it. The show was revolutionary when it premiered as it uses a lot of  “bad language” and talks about sex, a LOT, and it was early in Mamet’s rapid-fire dialogue that has since made him famous.

THE DESIGN: since there are so many scenes, and the shows keeps coming back around to a bar and a bed, we stripped away any of the architectural necessities and decided to stage it IN THE ROUND (otherwise known as an ARENA arrangement, meaning that the audience is on all four sides of the playing space, and that actors. This necessitates that there be no doors/walls/windows and that space is defined by lighting, sound and the usage of the stage by the director and actors. In other words, simplicity rules.

As I was doing so much myself, it was necessary to keep things simple as well. The hardest thing on this show for me was painting the floor, which took about 3 days and nearly 2000 running feet of masking tape. By using the color scheme that was prevalent in the 70s. it gives  a FEELING of the time of the play without being slavish. The design in based, somewhat, on a painting by Sol LeWitt, a fairly well known artist that came of age in the POP Art movement of the 60’s.  In an arena set-up, the FLOOR becomes incredibly important as its’ the major architectural force that the audience has to help them visually. The furniture was designed to withstand abuse, and to be used around the department for years to come… it’s purposely skeletal and basic. The lighting, too was fairly straightforward, with only small tonal shifts at key moments.

Sound was particularly fun to work on as I got to go back in the mid 70s and dig up all kinds of things that were popular then… getting to discern the real difference between funk and soul, look at the differences between early punk and glam rock, was a lot of fun to explore.  And as a scenic designer, it was exciting to see how sound could help sculpt the space and the world of the play. The muzak rendition of GIRL FROM IMPANEMA during the department store scene, made the crew and cast burst out laughing the first time they heard it during tech… in part because it was simply so WRONG and yet so RIGHT. The bar, the office,  and perhaps everyone’s  favorite sound cue… the porn movie the two guys sit through one night. It was built of several different parts in Pro-tools (a computerized sound editing program), including a very instrumental heavy cover of  Kool and the Gang’s JUNGLE BOOGIE, setting a bass line for the heavy breathing and … dare I say it…. Sex noises….

Sometime’s it’s fun to step outside your “norm” and stretch….

... and the other one....

is a new adaptation of the seven extant plays of the ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles.
They've been adapted by Sean Graney, a Chicago-local director with whom I've had the pleasure of working several times in the past few years. He's got an amazing ability to adapt classical texts in a way that's visually and thematically fascinating to a modern audience. I love working with Sean, in part because he pushes me outside my comfort zone as a designer. I appreciate getting pushed like that.

anyhow to the basics...

SOPHOCLES: SEVEN SICKNESSES
for The Hypocrites - Chicago at the CHopin Theatre Basement
adapted and directed by Sean Graney
Scenic Design by yours truly and Maria DaFabo
Costume Design by Alison Siple
Lighting Design by Jared Moore
Music Adaptor - Kevin O'Donnell
Sound Design by Steven Ptacek


THE STORY
The whole production intertwines 7 greek plays into an evening of bloody and dirty deeds. It includes Sophocles' takes on the three OEDIPUS-family stories (REX,  AT COLONUS, and finally ANTIGONE), as well as those that dealt with the HERAKLES and Trojan War (PHILOKTETES, IN TRACHIS, and AJAX).  It roughly follows the fall of Thebes, and the Greek's belabored mid-Trojan-War stasis, before the tide of war turned their way. The show runs over 4 hours long and includes 2 intermissions, and the cost of dinner with you tickets. At its' base it's a story about love, loss, and the vagarities of a war that some feel not worth fighting... in other words it has a prescience that is rather apropos to today.

The oddities of this show for me are that, aside from the rough run I saw last night. I won't get to see it again until after an audience is there... i.e. I will not be present for pretty much ALL of tech. When I was approached to design it, I was already contracted for SPUNK at Court, and as much as I love working with Sean I couldn't pass up the project that I was already working on. so The Hypocrites were kind enough to agree to let me design it ALONGSIDE the wonderful Maria DaFabo, who's been the prop guru on several shows I've done with them over the last few years. She's great! and for some reason thought it a fun chance to also sit in the designer's seat. So we've been in close contact all along, but she's the one actually see the show through "on the ground" as it were.

 The other oddity is that we're doing it in the basement space at the Chopin Theatre. It's a ... challenging space to work in for many reasons... It has a set of 6 columns in the space that break it up and are NOT removeable, forcing interesting staging choices be made. The ceiling of the space slopes from about 10 feet at the entrance to closer to 8' at the back of the space. The floor is concrete and cannot be painted... let's just say there are a lot of restrictions.

In our discussions, Sean wanted a space that evoked a hospital as there are two nurses that are "thru-lines" by being present in all 7 plays. and he wanted a space where the audience was ENVELOPED in the action, not just separate viewers... so to that end. we created a space where the audience will enter in thru the flipping double doors that are used throughout the show... they'll have to go up a couple steps and thru the doors before going down a couple steps into the "house" on either side of the 14'-side walkway that is the main playing area that runs the full length of the room. Instead of chairs, the audience will be seated on padded benches that are tiled in a  similar way to the way the walls of the "hospital" are.  The colors are the blue, white and red that were common in American hospitals in the 1950s. There are traps in the floor that allow access to action and characters unseen.

here's what the audience will see when they walk in thru the doors....

and here's looking across the playing space. you can see the columns and even the director in the middle left of the pic.

the set's still under construction... but note that the lighting designer has put fluorescent lights all over the stage space

and here's the main entrance wall... you see the double doors the audience enters thru.

I'll take some panoramic shots at  some point to share....

up next ? Two shows at once!!

but I'll post separately about them...

Coming right off the fun of "going home" to Actors Theatre of Louisville, I walked right into tech for SPUNK at Court Theatre Chicago.... which is on the campus of University of Chicago where I teach... so in some ways, I was immediately "coming home" a second time...
I'm a huge fan of Court Theatre and their mission to breathe new life into the classics. Their seasons are always thought-provoking, and fascinating for how different ideas are paired off with each other.

For this show it required less of a reworking, as it has been a new investigation into a fascinating writer Zora Neale Hurston, who just happens to be my wife's favorite author.

So here we go....

SPUNK - Court Theatre Chicago, Sept 2, 2011
by George C Wolfe, adapted from short stories by Zora Neale Hurston
Directed by Seret Scott
Music Direction/orchestrations by Kelvyn Bell
Scenic Design by yours truly
Costume Design by Janice Pytel
Lighting Design by Marc Stubblefield
Sound Design by Josh Horvath

THE STORY
This is a hard one to encapsulate as there are a group of 5 actors and a musician, who are acting out three different short stories by Hurston, an African-American female writer of the Harlem Renaissance. These stories are knitted together by music performed by Guitar Man, and often accompanying Blues Speak Woman. These stories are about the human condition but "told in the key of the blues". the first one SWEAT deals with a downtrodden wife, Delia, who is terribly abused by her husband, Sykes. He's taken up with another woman and tries to drive Delia away from the home her sweat has paid for, by leaving a rattlesnake in her midst. The tables are turned, and through the snake she fears, Delia gains freedom. In the second tale, HARLEM SLANG, two male hustlers try to out-talk each other, and talk-up a young lady out for a stroll. She knowingly puts them in their place. In the last, THE GILDED SIX BITS, a young poor married couple cross paths with an opportunistic swindler. Their vows are shaken, but the strength of forgiveness and family are their personal salvation. All three make great use of language. All are written in the vernacular speak of the world from which they come. As a sociologist and cultural anthropologist, Hurston was uniquely adept at capturing the voices and the language of those she interviewed and talked to.

From a design point of view, this show is a little bit of a challenge in that there are two main, but very different geographic locations.... the first and third tales ostensibly take place near Eatonville, Florida, a rural, predominantly black township, while the second takes place along a streetcorner in Harlem in the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance (i.e. the mid 1930s- early 1940s). So the visual research for these two worlds is VERY different---Harlem during this time was upscale, filled with the aristocracy of the African American populace, whereas Eatonville, was a very rural backwater. Artwork that was created about and in these two locations was VASTLY different... Harlem was sleek, colorful, cool, Eatonville, rough, natural, warm.

After much discussion with our director, Seret Scott, we felt that keeping to the world of Hurston's upbringing was the best... that of Eatonville, and especially since those locales begin and end the show... it made sense. We looked at lots of images of barns, houses, and structures that populated Eatonville in the 1920s- 40s. The Great Depression... photographers from the Federal Works Progress Administration. It was fun to look back into the era.
But we didnt' need a REAL location, but an abstraction of it... so we created space-shapes where the scenes and stories could play out, and then used the research to pull real textures from.... The reality of dirt, underfoot and the REAL quality of the faded barnwood were interesting to us. see below...

In looking at the space we'd created, it felt a little bland still... so we added the names of black townships, and the lighting designer highlights the places we are in the appropriate tales... (you can see HARLEM lit up in the picture just above.

The IMPORTANCE of a LIGHTING DESIGNER

As the SENSE tech has moved on, I've been particularly impressed by how the lighting designer, Brian Lillienthal has managed to eke out such distinctive and meaningful looks and feelings for the multitude of locations. As stated previously, there are over 50 scenes in this adaptation, and a number of them involve people walking out of doors. Brian has been quite masterful as giving such an array of colors and feelings to the world, here are a few of my favorite shots that explicate his arsenal...

The necessity for flexibility of time/mood/location with lighting is one of the reasons that we worked hard to create a set that had a degree of subtlety to the color... the grays and ecrus, and lavenders that make up the rather subtle paint treatment. Had we gone with bolder color choices, Brian would have been hard-pressed to create such an array. I try really hard to think about how a lighting designer's needs fit into the equation. In this project it was difficult, as Actors Theatre wanted me to simply adapt my Northlight design for their space, which cut out a lot of the process conversation that normally happens. Brian was constantly playing catch-up to the rest of us who had done the show together before... in many ways it put him in a difficult spot, but I'm so glad and impressed that he came through with such stunning work.

Coming back to ATL has been a pleasure and an honor. I'd NEVER thought that I'd ever really design on the mainstage here, much less be designing for Jon Jory doing the first big show of the season. I'm a lucky designer (and even luckier that my wife puts up with the insanity that has been my professional world this summer)! I'll let the final image of SENSE end this post....

RETURNING HOME

SENSE AND SENSIILITY August 28, 2011

THE STORY

Based on the novel by Jane Austen, SENSE is the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Their father has recently died, which makes their situation dire, as his estate must pass to their elder half-brother, John, leaving them virtually penniless. Before they leave Norland Park, Elinor meets Edward Ferrars, brother to her sister-in law, and they take a fancy to each other. A “situation” is found for the Dashwood family far away at Barton Park, the estate of a distant relation, the Middletons. Here, Marianne finds two suitors, the more reserved Col. Brandon and the impulsive Mr. Willoughby, to whom she’s particularly attracted due to his energy and evident passion for life. A friend, Mrs. Jennings, take the sisters to London for a visit, where it becomes known in a confidence to Elinor, that Edward is already secretly engaged. Meanwhile, at a society ball, Marianne discovers the inconstancy of her love, Mr. Willoughby. From Col. Brandon, Elinor learns that Willoughby is even more of a cad than was previously known. The downtrodden Marianne takes the news hard, and begins to become sick. News comes that Edward is being pressured by his family to forego his secret engagement in favor of a far wealthier woman, he refuses and is cut off from his family.  Col. Braondon knowing this offers him a position at a parsonage, which he accepts. Their visit ended, they begin the journey from London back to Barton, where Marianne falls dangerously ill and takes to bed. Col. Brandon aids at her bedside, and Marianne slowly recovers. Being somewhat humbled by the news of her Willoughby, and touched by the care he gave her during her illness, a new love begins to blossom between Marianne and Brandon. Finally, Edward reappears to meet Elinor. His engagement broken he is free to offer his hand to Elinor, who rapturously accepts. Thus Elinor’s SENSE prevails, and Marianne’s SENSIBILITY finds a sturdier base, with two couples about to be wed.

THE TEAM

Jane Austen’s SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Adapted and directed by Jon Jory

Scenic Design: yours truly

Costume Design: Rachel Laritz

Lighting Design: Brian Lillienthal

Composer/Sound Design: Joe Cerqua

I originally designed this show at Northlight Theatre in Chicago back in March of this year. It was picked-up by Actors Theatre of Louisville to begin their new season. It’s been interesting and exciting for a number of reasons… First, to get another stab at a show is somewhat of a rarity… It allowed me the chance to fix a few things that I wasn’t happy with about the Northlight production… small things, actually, things probably completely unseen by other people, but things I’m glad to correct, nonetheless. Secondly, it gave me a chance to “go home” to Louisville, where I worked for 4 years in the late 90s as the Resident Assistant Scenic Designer under Paul Owen, who was a major influence on the designer I’ve become. There’s something just downright EXCITING about coming back here and designing a show on the mainstage, with Jon Jory directing, of all people. Makes me feel like a grown-up!

The design of the show is somewhat abstract, and I would even call it a “colorist” approach. Colorism being a phase of stage design history particularly popular in the 70s and 80s, which began in Europe, in which a limited color palette was utilized for a large space, allowing lighting and usage of the stage space to delineate location and time.

Jon and I went through nearly 30 (ad I’m not hyperbolizing here) different initial sketches for the Northlight production. Playing with different themes, ideas and spatial usage.  Here are some of the rejected VERY rough sketches…

We kept coming back to some elements (like the benches and the door) and those ended up in the final design, but in different locations/perspectives than in these. We also had to deal with the very REAL limitations of the Northlight space and budget, which also weeded out some ideas. The design contains a large, tall wall with an off-center hole, an “inner circle” which contains a doorway and two small ottomans and an “outer ring” which contains three long benches.  

Within the abstraction though, there is meaning. The circle motif runs throughout… the hole in the wall, the inner circle on the floor, the curved crown molding overhead… for me they represent the movement of the piece… there are over 50 scenes, some of which are no longer than a handful of lines, and while we couldn’t possibly REALISTICALLY represent each one, each is made individual by how the space is used, how the lighting bring the scope of the scene IN or OUT, and what parts of the PERMANENT set are used… furniture glides in and out by actors carrying things on and off, and it gives the whole performance a feeling of being a circular dance, or gavotte.  More later!

but first, here's a quick pic of the LOUISVILLE production in tech...

a shout out to the crew

THE STUDENT PRINCE - August 16, 2011

THE STORY

In The Student Prince, a young affable prince has been betrothed since childhood for a politically-sensitive marriage to a young Princess not of his choosing. But at the top of the show he is on his way to college for a year at Heidelberg, where his old tutor/favorite friend went. Of course, he immediately falls in love with a virtuous and beautiful barmaid at the inn where he is staying. Thus ends act 1. In act 2, his studies (and love life) are interrupted with news that the king has taken ill, and he must return home to the castle at Karlsberg immediately. He wants to elope with Kathe, but realizes that his duty is to country and he, regretful, returns home, promising to write her daily. In the first scene of act 3, the formal betrothal ceremony takes place, but just prior, he realizes that his 'handlers' have interrupted all his letters to Kathe, and hers to him. After the ceremony his reverie about his time in Heidelberg causes his to run away to see Kathe again. The final scene is back outside the inn, the Princess arrives to meet Kathe, and they realize that they are not such different people.  The Prince finds Kathe and explains how they've been misled, but Kathe is resolute that they are of two separate worlds, but is heartened by the fact that their time together did indeed mean as much to him as it did to her. Kathe takes her tearful leave of her Prince, and the curtain falls as the Princess and the Prince take each others' hands and begin walking away from the Inn, toward their new life as the King and Queen.

THE TEAM

THE STUDENT PRINCE by Sigmund Romberg

Produced by Light Opera Works -- Evanston, IL

at Cahn Auditorium, campus of Northwestern University

Director/Choreographer: Rudy Hogenmiller

Scenic Design: yours truly

Costume Design: Jeff Hendry

Lighting Design: Andrew Meyers

A  CREW IS A WONDERFUL THING!

they are (typically, and HOPEFULLY) quick, quiet, exacting, and ideally COMPLETELY unseen by the audience, but without them we 'd be in SUCH trouble. Especially in a multi-locational operetta like STUDENT PRINCE.  Here's a pic to show what they are up to BEFORE the show to help get things set up.

 You'll note people milling about the cyc (that the sky-type piece of fabric at the back of the stage).

For this show there are some rather quick and exacting changes the set must make, and those are planned for and rehearsed during tech. For this show there are shifts of set pieces, flying pieces of scenery, furniture and properties that have to get placed. 

In designing such a set, it often takes a lot of time and LOTS of redrawing to figure out exactly where everything CAN fit together. For this show, there are several moving pieces of scenery backstage that have to fit offstage, AND fit properly in their place onstage. It can be a logistical challenge to put it all together, very much like the spatial-relationship puzzles we all did in grade school, but that's part of the challenge I love in this job... the technical marrying with the artistic. 

And here's a picture of "outside the Inn Of The Three Golden Apples" near the University of Heidelberg.

The other thing that is of interest, I think, in this design is the multiplicity of scenic usage. The exterior part of the Inn (seen in act 1 and act 3, scene 2) is built on castors and in revolving become part of the Princes upstairs suite of rooms for act 2 (pic below).  

Pardon the long delay in ROCKLAND post #2.. quixotic internet access at the Rozsa Center and life intervening got in the way, hopefully I'll catch up while here in Louisville...

I'm finally including pictures of the ROCKLAND set in this post. yippee!

The set: There are a number of locations required in the text… outside the mine, in town, at the temperance hall, in churches, a couple homes, and the mine office, etcetera. So in early conversations with the director, we decided on a UNIT-SET* approach.

·      - a UNIT-SET is one where the space is designed in such a way that it can be used as different locations easily with changes in lighting and props/furniture, and directorial usage. Typically it includes multiple entrance possibilities, and often includes different platform levels. Shakespeare plays are often done on unit sets, as there are always multiple shifts in location. From a producer’s perspective, they’re also useful as they can be cheaper than trying to detail multiple realistic locations that would require lots of mechanics to shift scenery on and offstage. From my point of view, these are often fun to design, as they require me think a little more abstractly about space.

For this show, Jussi, the director, and I looked at  a lot of mine-related architecture, including a lot of pictures of the original Rockland mine, which has now been completely dismantled and of which no remnants remain.

There are two predominant visual textures in the set, patinated copper and rough-hewn, aged wood, (in this cast most of it is pine pulled from a 75-year old demolished barn about 30 miles from Houghton, MI, where we were doing the show). Thematically, these two materials are incredibly important and speak to the time and story. The COPPER is what was being mined, and as such the center of the greedy businessmen who ran the mine with little thought for the workers, and the wood was used to hold the beams and create the support structure that keep the mines nominally safe. In the design we used these "real" textures in abstract ways...i.e. the COPPER was used to delineate the hills/mountains into which the workers bored to obtain it. These "mountains" are made to resemble copper plates riveted together, and then painted so that the plates appear to have aged in differing stages... the "deeper" the plate, the more corroded and patinated with verdant green, the "more recently added" plates are less patinated. Jussi and I really loved the way that copper, as it ages and gathers patina, grows greener and more vibrant.

The ROUGH-HEWN WOOD was used to frame the mine entrance into the mountainside as well as for the silhouette of the mine-shaft building upstage left, and the false-proscenium (that regrettably doesn't photograph very well in my pictures from the show). 

scene 2  - the party at the White Rose Temperance Hall

scene 8 - at Johanna's dinner table

act 2 scene 1 - the local saloon

in these three pictures, I hope you can see the difference that a UNIT SET can utilize to help tell a story. simply by moving people about in different traffic patterns, adding (or subtracting tables, chairs and stools), and different lighting, the focus changes and the FEELING of the space is different... the Temperance Hall is bright and airy, Johanna's dining room feels small and confined, and the sallon has a different energy about it.

Sooo... a blog, eh?

While writing my Prague blog (www.tomburchinprague.blogspot.com), last month at the Prague Quadrennial 2011. I realized that I enjoyed writing, and figured that during tech rehearsals is a perfect time to put some thoughts on ‘paper’. As a scenic designer during tech, I’m often sitting in the relatively empty audience, watching the slow progression though the play, as we integrate lights, sound, costumes, props, and acting. And during this, I’m typically bored enough that I end up eating… and eating… and snacking in between bouts of eating, so I’m hoping that perhaps by WRITING, I might snack a little less. As to purpose, my intention is to write about the design process, the business of being a working professional designer, and tech issues, including images of the various projects that I’m in tech for… in some ways it’s like an e-design journal. As such, postings will likely be sporadic as I am, fortunately, NOT in tech every week… though it often seems like I might be, especially to my wife.

So as to the basics of THIS first production on the blog…

Title: ROCKLAND, the opera

By: Jukka Linkola -- composer, Jussi Tapola – librettist

Producer: Pine Mountain Music Festival in Houghton, MI

This is the American premiere of this work.

Director: Jussi Tapola (yep, the Finnish librettist)

Scenic Design : yours truly

Lighting Design: Helena Kuuka

Costume Design: Suzanne Young

Story: ROCKLAND is based on a first-hand account of a labor dispute at a copper mine near Houghton, MI in 1906.  Following a mining accident that took several lives, a group of Finnish miners discuss going on strike for better wages and safer working conditions. The sentiment of the small town lies with the “more American” mine owners (Methodists) over the immigrant, mainly- Finnish, miners (Lutheran). Pekka, an ardently drunk miner, uses this event to begin to turn his life around, becoming the leader of the strike movement, having watched a close friend die in the accident. His loyal wife, Johanna is being subtly wooed by Pekka’s brother, William, a foreman at the mine.  He wants to try working with the mine owners to better conditions. The mine owners move to evict the widow of a recently killed miner from the company housing. This outrages Pekka and after giving a passionate argument at the temperance hall, the miners decide to strike. His brother goes to the mine owners to attempt to broker a peace, only to be strong-armed with the promise of a promotion. The mine owners ask him to name names, and he gives up his brother as a ring-leader. As the strike nears, the two preachers give fervent sermons that further inflame their own parishoners’ points of view. At the strike, the police, nominally there to safeguard the ‘scab miners’, actually fire into the crowd, killing two, including Pekka. Following his funeral, William tries to convince Johanna to marry him, but Johanna has decided to return with her two children to the Old Country, saying that there is too much memory of pain here for her to stay. 

More to come tomorrow about the set itself and our thought process in the design.