UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

It’s finals week! I’m actually caught up with grading (until the wave of design projects on Thursday) and have been spending time on “The Addams Family Musical.”

First, I finished up the paint elevations for the periaktoi and flip panels:

Then, on to the floor treatment. Here’s the rendering just getting rolling:

And then, almost finished:

Assistant designer Abby and I had a chat last week about the mechanism for the heretic chair, wherein a spike erupts from the seat with the pull of a lever. Over the weekend, I had a thought about the mechanism and describing it with a prototype seemed the easiest way to share the idea:

Spike down:

Spike up:

The quick link on the left side would be attached to either a weight or heavy duty spring. The mechanics work well-enough, though there’s still the lever to figure out, as well as getting a few more inches of spike — kinda dinky right now.

Yesterday, assistant designer Abby and I had a meeting to discuss progress on “The Addams Family Musical.” One of her projects is to research, design, and draft the crypt wagon, and another is to research ways to create the upward stabbing spike of the heretic chair. She shared some videos and info in which folks used bungees and rather awkward levers. I’ve been thinking about other mechanical solutions to this effect and in explaining my thoughts to Abby I whipped up a little three minute model, which turned out to be rather adorable:

We’re still looking, but we now have a fair amount on the table to sort though.

I’ve also been working up the first wave of paint elevations. Here are the periaktois and flip panels, in progress on the drafting table:

It’s the last week of classes! Sadly, our production of “Resort 76” was not selected to travel to the KCACTF Region 3 festival in January. Time to start taking that apart (though since the shop had to clear the corridor where we were storing half the show in order to make room for the arrival of the shelving system for the prop and costume collection spaces, the scenery and props have been crammed into the trap room for the time being. . .).

On the other hand, drafting continues on “The Addams Family Musical.’ I’m up to plate 15, now, and student assistant designer Abby is working up a plate for the crypt wagon.

As I’ve firmed up dimensions, I’ve also gone back to the Sketchup model and added some more details:

I’m also getting ready to dive into the paint elevations, so here’s a pic of the drafting table as I lay out the periaktoi faces:

On to finals week!

As I mentioned in the previous post, this week I’m working on the drafting for “The Addams Family Musical.”

Here are two of the plates, featuring one of the periaktoi faces:

And another featuring the details of the periaktois’ Mansard roof pieces:

On both plates, there’s some information yet to be added and/or revised as I work out features on upcoming plates. That’s one of the nice things about drafting with a computer program; it’s a bit easier to revise. Since I haven’t gotten to all the detail plates for the smaller, moveable scenic elements I don’t yet know what the total number of sheets will be. . .

On the other hand, I have enough concrete measurements to begin a detailed Sketchup model. Here’s an image with the platforming, periaktoi, and flip panels that I shared with the production team this morning:

“Twelfth Night” closed before the Thanksgiving Break, but since I took about a 1000 photos at final dress (and it’s the final weeks of the semester and I’m drafting The Addams Family Musical) it’s taking me a while to go through them all. Here’s a selection of production photos from the first third of the show.

Scenic design by student Megan Grove. Lighting design by guest LD Noele Stollmack. Costume design by student Grace Rusch. Stage manager student Michelle Dohm. Props team students Abby Lezama-Smith and Siena LoMastro. Sound design by Hans Pregler.

The set under work lights:

Preshow. KG walked and played as the audience entered:

Top of the show, on the beach after the shipwreck:

Toby Belch and conspirator:

Feste and Olivia’s court:

Preparing for Viola’s entrance:

Sebastian and the captain:

Belch and Aguecheek:

Conspiring against Malvolio:

Malvolio reads the letter:

More to come!