Short Attention Span Theatre!!!

THE HUMANA 10s

THE DUNGEONS AND THE DRAGONS by  Kyle John Schmidt directed by KJ Sanchez

HERO DAD by Laura Jacqmin directed by Sarah Rasmussen

THE BALLAD OF 423 AND 424 by Nicholas Pappas directed by Sarah Rasmussen

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Humana Festival of New American Plays 2012

Scenic Design by yours truly

Costume Design by Lindsay Chamberlain

Lighting Design by Nick Dent

Sound Design/Composition by Peter Doyle

THE PLAY

 This time there are three!

D&D is a really funny and heartfelt look at a group of outcast teens who bond by playing Dungeons and Dragons. It speaks to the relevance of fantasy as a means to bond and find a way through adversity… even puberty.

HERO DAD  takes a dramatic look at three different men and their relationships to women other than the mothers of their kids. Being a father in the 21^st century isn’t easy, especially if you have joint custody.

BALLAD is a heartwarming look at a reclusive writer who learns that opening his door to his neighbor can lead to beautiful relationship, but that taking that first step across the threshold can be difficult.

OUR PRODUCTION

These are always a lot of fun at Humana… at least they were when I was on staff here in the late 90s. The challenge is keeping the professionally produced, while simultaneously making them fit together AND not stress out the already-exhausted staff… AND it has to fit on top of the mainstage Humana festival sets, easy as pie, eh?

The set for D&D has to blur the line between fantasy and reality., and KJ (the director) and I went through a whole mess of different ideas. Because we NEED the fantasy to be visually  “real”, while at the same time, we also need reality to fade in and out. We were lucky in that the upstage wall. Is a scrim…. So what we ended up with was having “reality” be represented by the basement playroom they are playing in. it’s upstage of the scrim, and so when we need to bleed into reality, we simply make it appear in degrees, always incrementally. The fantasy world is all black and it anchored by a dungeonmaster’s stone-slab throne. Originally we wre going to have it glow in the dark, but we cut the idea when the lighting designer came up with an easier-to-effect fantasy world.

the dungeonmaster's throne

postscript - at the end of the first day of tech we CUT the upstage "basement playroom" set. because of sightlines to some extreme seats, the playwright was concerned that if EVERYONE didn't see it in it's totality, that it'd be confusing. SO we cut it from the show. I can't say I fully agree, but one of the aspects of being a designer is that you need to take into account the directors (and in the case of HUMANA festival, playwrights) wishes. I was sad to see it go, but I understand the concern that was raised.. c'est la vie!

For HERO DAD, we tried a couple ideas, but it really is a play that doesn’t need any visual support, and its only needful thing is a chair that looks like it belongs in a medical waiting room.

HERO DAD

BALLAD is far more exacting in its’ needs. It takes place in the hallway of an urban walk-up apartment building. We see the doorways to two apartments (423 and 424, respectively). And these doors are CONSTANTLY being opened and shut, slammed and creaked open. Over the span of 10 minutes, we see 9 months of hallway interactions between the two quirky neighbors. Sarah and I talked about what city it was, what kind of building it was/is. It’s level of deterioration, and such things. It was a really fun conversation. In placing it onstage in the Pamela Brown Auditorium,

we had to adjust to allow for the extreme sightlines that space has (see my postings on SENSE AND SENSIBILITY last fall….) 

BALLAD OF 423 AND 424

Leanring frmo yoru msitakes [sic]

OH GASTRONOMY!

By Michael Golamco, Carson Kreitzer, Steve Moulds Matt Schatz, and Tanya Saracho

Based on a concept by Amy Attaway and Sarah Lunnie

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Humana Festival of New American Plays 2012

Directed by Amy Attaway

Scenic Design by yours truly

Costume Design by Lindsay Chamberlain

Lighting Design by Brian Lillienthal

Sound Design/Composition by Peter Doyle

THE PLAY

 Well… it’s hard to describe, as it’s more of a series of theatrical sketches and songs, rather than an actual STORY, however, there are several stories that play out over multiple scenes. It’s all knit together based around the conceit of FOOD… how it’s grown, harvested, manipulated and the community that creates it and how we respond to it in different ways. The cast is the acting apprentice company… so it’s 25/26 20-something young actors. The project exists as a showcase for them during the big “professionals weekends” of the festival, when directors from all over the country come to see shows. There are a lot of really neat, and lovely pieces within this… Matt Schatz’ musical bits are hilarious and poignant, especially his TASTES LIKE HOME song. Tanya Saracho’s IN THE LINE is a powerful piece on the economics of privilege. Michael Golamco’s ORDERING series is ridiculously funny, especially the second scene with a waiter who explains in EXACTING DETAIL where the food comes from (“Your ribs come from a cow named Betsy who had wide set brown eyes that trusted deeply….”) Steven Mould’s FAMILY FEAST two-parter is a lovely summation on family, food and forgiveness. And Kreitzer’s TOMATOES juxtaposes a family farmer, a suburban backyard farmer and a city-dwelling roof-top gardener, and speaks beautifully to the spiritual aspects of growing food.

OUR PRODUCTION

I was fortunate in that I got to attend a workshop for the show back in December at Actors. It was a FASCINATING experience to be around the table with the actors and all the writers, while they were still writing and rewriting the show. That’s typically not the case. I rarely get that kind of time with the writers. And it was really useful to understand their own aesthetics and how to find a way to bridge their different voices and ideas.

Due to what this is (a showcase for the actors) and because there are a lot of practical and technical and budgetary limitations, it took some figuring out. The limitations were that the show performs REALLY late nights (11pm) after the evening’s primary Humana Festival shows. The set has to strike/load-in in a very tight timeframe (less than 45 minutes), and has to fit the TONE of the show without necessarily being the “perfect thing” for any one of the 30+ pieces. It’s also in the Bingham Theatre at Actors, which is an arena theatre… so there’s really only a FLOOR to deal with… which is both good and a challenge….

 shot showing the theatre and the stage pretty nicely.

We went through a lot of ideas for the floor… different graphics, different color patterns and schemes…. Trying to figure out what would support the WHOLE show the best. We wanted something that spoke to the overarching theme, but nothing that would be so graphically exact as to be visually distracting in a space where the floor is such a STRONG visual element.  Because of the notions of eco-friendli-ness, I kept being drawn to sage-y natural subtle green colors, and  wanted the content of the image to be suggestive without being OBVIOUS. So what I did was take a photograph of a flatware set (specifically a knife, fork, and spoon) and cropped and manipulated it in Photoshop, so that it had a much more subtle presentation. Apparently the cast, after loading the set in for the first time, had no idea what it was from standing on it… but as soon as they went up the audience aisles and looked back, they understood it. I kinda like that.

Having said that, there’s one major issue I have with what I created….

When we started working on it, we knew that it had to sit on top of one of the main Humana Bingham shows, and at the time we only had information on two of the three shows. EAT YOUR HEART OUT (of which the floor of the set was a series of brown carpet tiles) and HOW WE GOT ON (which is asset of concrete-looking floortiles  with various other textures stretching into the voms. The other Humana Bingham show, THE VERIZON PLAY, was still in a great deal of flux as to what it was going to need. OF the two options before us, HEART made the most sense.. it was to be brown carpet tiles, with a slight pattern framing the space… but overall, nice and neutral. Since we couldn’t get RID of the brown, my thought was to have our set/floor simply sit on TOP of this, and let the brown act as a frame. So we went with HEART as our base. However, right before the set was going into the shop to be built, the TD (technical director) realized that due to fire egress laws, we had to cut the overall size of the floor by a couple feet along the length. This made practical sense at the time… however, when loaded in, there was more of the carpeting visible, and more of the variants of the carpet pattern were more visible than I realized it would be. I really hate that. I SHOULD have realized that would be the case, and it’s a point that I simply missed. The fault of this one lies firmly in my camp, and that annoys the bejeezus out of me.  What I wish I’d done, is instead of CUTTING it back, EXTENDING the two sides all the way to the north and south audience platform lines. It would have solved the fire-egress issue, while giving the set-floor more room to expand, and keep the awkward level change out of play. oh we.. live and learn.

  the ice cream foodtruck - I love that the playwright 

decided to call it "The Sophisticated Guernsey"

 the last scene. the two sisters seeing each other from across the room

the communal gathering

from sketch to model to the stage

todays' the last day of regular tech. We'll end the evening with an "invited dress rehearsal", which is theatre-ese for a dress rehearsal where there'll be some audience, invited from the friends/family of the company. We have these to allow the cast a chance to get used to how an audience will react. It's particularly important with comedies as audiences laughing can throw actors off their timing.
tomorrow night, we'll have the first PREVIEW performance. During previews, the cast (and often tech staff) will continue to work the show in rehearsals during the day, and perform to a paying audience at night. Preview tickets are often cheaper than regular seats. These performance ALSO give the cast and team a chance to gauge an audience reaction, and allows them some time to adjust things. This is particularly useful if it's a new play or musical. Here at Northlight, a show previews for about a week before the official opening. after which everything is SET and no further changes are made to the show.

thought I'd share some of the process work on this show, now that I've already shared the research...

ACT 1 - THE EXTERIOR

rough sketch

model

onstage

ACT 2 - THE INTERIOR

sketch

the model

onstage

It's kinda strange that the overall design changed so little, it's rare for that to be the case.

from research to stage

As promised, first-hand research of the team's trip to Ten Chimneys (the estate) to work on Ten Chimneys (the play)

the stone retaining walls that dot the pathways of the estate

the flagstone terrace stairs and fence near the pool

the exterior of the acting studio

the poolhouse... note the flagstones and the furniture

two pictures of the exterior of the set

The stonework walls, the flagstone floor, the stairs, the beam-log construct of the studio... all come directly from the first-hand research.

fireplace inside the MAIN house, not the studio

the plate collection on the north wall of the studio

our docent and part of the interior of the studio. note the balcony, its' railings and ladder, and even the wall sconce on the left. take note of the bit of the chandelier  with the bells you can see in the top of the picture. 

close-up of the interior of the studio (act 2). note the chandelier, fireplace, plates balcony items, etc...

there were three big aesthetic alterations we were forced to make... the first is the fireplace... the fireplace in the actual studio is rather large and stucco-ed. we didn't have room given stage shape and audience layout to use the actual one, so I adapted one of the fireplaces from inside the main house that could be made to fit the extremely tight space we had available for it. the second concession was the floor. because the set is on the turntable (so that we can go from exterior to interior), and we needed more interior space than could fit ON the turntable, we had to let the floor be the same both interior and exterior, which meant the flagstones... we also altered the color... you'll note from the research that the flagstones are all gray,  but we needed more warmth... so we changed the flagstone colors to dappled browns. the last concession was the shape of the studio itself. you'll note in the research that it's a square building, on the set it's trapezoidal. this was done so that we could open up the interior more so that more of the audience could see INTO the room. 

It's been a real challenge to deal with both the practicalities of the play and the oddities of this particular theatre space -- as well as keep the LOOK as close to that of the real place. I'm VERY curious to see how the audience reacts to it all!

love letter to theatre folk

TEN CHIMNEYS

By Jeffrey Hatcher

Northlight Theatre, Chicago

Directed by BJ Jones

Scenic Design by yours truly

Costume Design by Rachel Laritz

Lighting Design by JR Lederle

Sound Design/Composition by Joe Cerqua

THE PLAY

Set on the Wisconsin country estate of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, known as Ten Chimneys, it is 1939, and they have arrived to rehearse for the Broadway production of Chekov’s THE SEAGULL.  Drama erupts when the actress hired to play Nina, a young Uta Hagen, arrives a few days early.

Alfred’s doting mother, Hattie, lives on the estate fulltime, assisted by Alfred’s half-siblings Louise and Carl, who look after the place and their mother, but are burdened with the fact that their older, successful half-sibling, holds the financial cards. Hattie only has eyes for her oldest son, Alfred, even to the point of constantly antagonizing Lynne, his wife of 15 years now. The Lunts are well established theatre luminaries, and have chosen to forego another “champagne and caviar” fluffy comedy (written by longtime friend and collaborator, Noel Coward), in favor of attempting the Chekovian masterpiece.

In a parallel to what’s happening in THE SEAGULL, Uta is attracted to Alfred, who, though interested in the young Uta, tries to convince his partner/wife Lynne that nothing is happening between them.  Scene rehearsals get mistaken for protestations of love, and the drama of the play and the drama of the lives of the real artists intertwine.  Though at first rather opposed to the youthful Uta staying on, Lynne realizes that there are greater dangers to her partnership with Alfred, and Uta may be the thing that helps bind Alfred to Lynne again.

The final scene takes places several years later, just after the end of WW2, on the evening that the Lunts decide to reopen the acting studio on the estate.  We learn of the ups and downs of the run of the SEAGULL, both on Broadway and on the subsequent tour. An older, more wizened, Uta appears and speaks of the wisdom the intervening years have given her, realizing that the character of Nina in SEAGULL is far more complex than any of them had realized.

MY THOUGHTS ON THIS PLAY

This play is really fascinating to me in that it’s a play about quintessential theatre-folk. The Lunts epitomized Broadway royalty (there’s even a theatre on Broadway that still bears their names.). But it shows the human, and familial side of life. It delves into issues of  the personal costs of being an artist and the fear and frustration of those who want to be, but who are not. The way Jeffrey Hatcher has paralleled the story of the Lunts and Chekov’s seminal work ABOUT theatre artists is clever, and witty, and pulls on so much of the desire to BE a part of something bigger than yourself.

OUR PRODUCTION

What was exciting (and a little nerve-wracking) to me about working on this show is that it takes place in a  REAL and ACTUAL location, and that location is only about 90 miles from the theatre where we’re performing it. The estate, TEN CHIMNEYS, has become a museum of sorts, and for the first meeting about the show we went and toured it. so…. we got to see the ACTUAL way it all looked, and how they used the things and places around them. To get to do that kind of FIRST-HAND research is rare in the theatre, but that comes at a price… some of the audience KNOW this place, and woe be the designer who gets even the tiniest thing wrong… at least to those of the “faithful”.

The first act takes place outside the pool on the estate, while most of the second act takes place INSIDE the acting studio they had built on the grounds of the estate. This means that there are some fervent logistical challenges as well.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the firsthand research and how we pulled and adapted ideas, but for now…  here are a couple quick pictures.

Northlight Theatre stage showing some of the audience... and JR (the lighting designer) in the corner.

the same stage from far audience left

Thinking on a different scale… an operatic scale…

Two weeks ago…

(Damn theatres that don’t have wireless….)

DIE FLEDERMAUS

By Johann Strauss Jr

Northwestern University Opera, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston, IL

Directed by Michael Ehrmann

Scenic Design by yours truly

Costume Design by Jana Andersson

Lighting Design by Andrew Meyers

Sound Design by Stephen Ptacek

The story is truly a bit of effervescent high-society fluff…

ACT 1

Mr. Eisenstein is prone to practical jokes, and has recently pulled over a big one on best friend, Falke, which ended with poor Falke fully dressed as a bat, passed out drunk on a nearby beachhead ,miles from home. Falke plots a trap for his friend, but not before Eisenstein is sentenced to a short stint in jail for a public altercation.  Falke convinces him to NOT report to prison as planned and entices him to a posh party at Russian billionaire, Count Orlofsky’s villa. Reluctantly,  Eisenstein is swayed by the promise of pretty girls to flirt with. He tells his wife that he’s going to report to jail, and instead heads to the party.

Meanwhile Rosalinde, Eisenstein’s wife, has an old flame, and singing teacher of the comic variety, who has reappeared in town and barges his way into the Eisenstein manse, taking up her husband’s clothing as settling in for the duration of her husband’s jail term. Falke tells Rosalinde that her husband hasn’t reported to jail and is attending a party that evening. He suggests that she go to the party, disguised so that she can check out what her husband is up to. She agrees. The police show up to take Eisenstein off to jail, but Rosalinde, wanting to get rid of Alfred, lets them take Alfred off to jail, so that she can escape his advances and get to the party to catch her husband in-flagrante-delicto. The Eisenstein’s maid, has also received an invitation to the party (later revealed to also be the machinations of Falke), and so Adele ‘borrows’ one of Rosalinde’s ballgowns and heads of to the party.

ACT 2

Prince Orlofsky’s  villa is a decadent feast of the senses. The Prince is bored with everything… too rich to care about the world around him. Falke piques his interest by saying that Falke can find a way to make him laugh with a little real-life domestic comedy that he’s arranged to play out at the party. Orlofsky says he’ll make Falke rich should he succeed. Eisenstein arrives and is introduced as a French Marquis. Adele arrives and is introduced as an up-and-coming opera singer, and Rosalinde arrives and is introduced as a Hungarian countess, who only appears in public wearing a mask (the better to spy on her husband with).  The Marquis (Eisenstein) is introduced to the Singer (his maid Adele), and almost blows their cover, but is saved when Adele sings (the famous Laughing Aria) laughing off his obvious “mistake”. The Marquis becomes enamored of the mysterious Hungarian Countess, and flirts shamefully with her. Rosalinde maintains her composure and takes away his special pocketwatch, as a sign of “the Marquis’ devotion”.  There is a sequence of performances for the attendees, which ends with a Toast to Love and to King Champagne.  Realizing that it’s incredibly late, Eisenstein calls for his coat and hat so that he can report to jail… where his wife thinks he is.

ACT 3

We now go to the local jail, where the supposed Eisenstein (i.e. Rosalinde’s former lover, Alfred) is holed up in a cell singing at the top of his lungs, annoying the jailor, Froshe. Eisenstein come in to give himself up only to be rebuffed “as we already have Eisenstein in jail”. Confused, Eisenstein learns that a man, claiming to be him was arrested at his home the night before, and that this man, and Rosalinde were very sad and kissing each other on parting. Realizing this his wife must be having an affair, and hearing his wife about to enter the jail, he disguises himself as his lawyer in order to overhear Rosalinde pleading for Alfred’s release.  He reveals himself to the horrified Alfred, and the smirking Rosalinde, who then produces his pocketwatch, thereby showing that she knows that Eisenstein was at the party and flirting with a (supposed stranger). He sheepishly begs her forgiveness and says that they must chalk these things up to the inebriation of King Champagne. All is well, restored, and ends happily.

OUR PRODUCTION

The original was written in the 1880s in Vienna, and is often done in that period and style. Michael Ehrmann, the director wanted to give it a different spin… so we set our production in the 1920/30’s’s world of Hollywood silent movies. It’s really was mere happenstance that it’s set in EXACTLY the same world as the recent blockbuster (and Oscar-winning movie, THE ARTIST). We actually started discussions about it months before the movie came out.  We looked at a lot of architecture and art of the ART DECO movement. It’s a beautiful and elegant style typified by geometric patterns, and color schemes that (predominantly) leaned towards blacks, whites and silver tones.  We also watched the old Fred Astaire movies like Top Hat and High Society.

act 1 living room of the Eisensteins

act 2  - Prince Orlofsky's villa

act 3 - the jail

Characters within the opera were given specific visual traits and tricks of notable Hollywood icons… the lawyer was Harpo Marx, Rosalinde was visually based on Jean Harlow, one of the Orlofsky performers was based on Marlene Dietrich (who sang a HYSTERICAL rendition of I AM TIRED from the movie Blazing Saddles… I know, it was out of context, but it WAS really funny), Froshe was essentially a take on Ralph Kramden from Honeymooners.

The challenge with the set for this show is that there are 3 acts that are set in vastly different locations (i.e. Eisenstein’s living room, the grand salon of Prince Orlofsky, and the local jail). SO in order to keep the worlds visually consistent and working in tandem with each other we used a UNIT SET approach… in that there were a few elements that were onstage the entire time, but there were pieces that came and went for each act in order to delineate the different worlds. The things in common were a diamond shaped platform at center stage and a drop that stretched across the back of the stage. On it was painted a DECO-style cityscape with two posh figures, one male one female, peeking over the ‘scape , grinning seductively at the goings-on. I pulled the two figures from paintings by Tamara de Lempicka, a German-borm American artist that was part of NYC’s high society in the 1920s. Her portraiture very much typifies the elegance, and sculptural splendor of “roaring 20s”.

The “pieces “ were a series of platforms, staircases, and flying walls that were reconfigured to give us the different locations.  All done up in shades of black, white and silver, with some hints of RED during the party (act2).

It was a lot of fun to work on, and it seemed like the audiences ate it up!