UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Our finals for Period Decor and Styles and Introduction to Theatrical Design were scheduled for the tail end of the final exam period (thank you university scheduling). So, the past two days have been spent working through all the projects and evaluating them in order to get the grades in by Friday afternoon.

For Period Decor, the students were assigned a scene from a play with a strong period requirement and expected to design the room required by the play. It wasn’t about design, but rather the application of research, and all of their choices were to be backed up with images and notes in an accompanying binder (since drawing skills varied widely). Here is a shot of most of the set renderings and models (they were given a choice depending on which they felt more comfortable with), pinned to one of the hallway bulletin boards:

For Intro to Design, their final project is also their final lighting design project. They were to present their design metaphor, explain how they developed design elements from the metaphor, present a central metaphor image, lighting visual research images, a charcoal sketch story board of the whole play, a cue synopsis for the whole play, and then develop two color sketches from two of the storyboard looks, create magic sheets to develop those color sketches, and then distill the magic sheets into purpose lists. Here are some pictures of their projects, also hanging on the corridor bulletin boards.

Twelve projects, and each one takes about forty minutes to go through and evaluate fully.

In the quiet between final exams and grading the final exams, finding time to work on paint elevations for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

“Public Enemy” struck over the weekend, and the plates of drafting for “Putnam County” have been delivered to the TD — though I have to start in on paint elevations this week. Last week we started thinking about “Animal Farm,” and by the end of the production meeting, we’d begun to explore stadium style seating.

And I then worked up a rough 3D model:

This afternoon, the director, the publicist and I will have a meeting to talk about seating, ticket sales, and how many seats (if any) we can afford to lose.

I’m also plunging into the grading of the Intro to Theatre’s costume design project. It was in a neat stack on my office floor before I spread them out to show off the students’ work for this photo:

In the rush to get “Putnam County” drafted and begin preliminary work on “Animal Farm” I forgot to post pictures from the final dress rehearsal of “Public Enemy.” So, here they are.

Directed by Mary MacDonald Kerr. Set design by Eric Appleton. Lighting design by Aimee Hanyzewski. Costume design by Tracey Lyons. Sound design by student Emily Ottinger. Props manager student Allison Lozar. Stage manager student Abyra Schneeberg. Thanks for Josh Schmidt for working with Emily on developing her sound design.

Scenes One and Two: The Stockman home:

Scene Three: The newspaper office:

Scene Four; The Meeting Hall.

Scene Five: The Stockman home:

This past week, one of my favorite Intro to Theatre assignments was due — a costume design for “A Raisin in the Sun.” The students pick a character from a moment on the play, do research, write a statement supporting their choices through the text of the play and their research, and do a costume rendering. They’re always surprised at how well they manage to do!

Here the projects are, on the wall of the classroom, prior to presentations and discussion:

Some pictures from Saturday’s first dress rehearsal of “Public Enemy,” a modernized version of Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” There are still things to be done on the set, but those will happen during Monday afternoon’s shop session (since we open Tuesday morning with our student matinee).

The top of the show:

Heading into the transition between scene one and two:

Scene three, the newspaper office:

We had first tech last night. It went pretty smoothly. On the other hand, there’s still a lot to be done.

Here’s a shot of guest director Mary MacDonald Kerr and guest lighting designer Aimee Hanyzewski with students at the tech table as we get the evening rolling.

And student stage manager Abrya walking the stage:

The set under worklights:

A final major element will be installed this afternoon. The timbers, which are all laying in the Hicklin theatre at the moment:

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With actors on the stage, the opening scene:

And my list at the end of the night: