UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

The finished drafted elevation of “Into the Woods.” Now I need to head back to the groundplan and get that to our TD by the week’s end.

This is where we left off with Romeo and Juliet at the end of the production meeting yesterday. This thumbnail shows the upstage framing structure with projection screen between the three central openings. Downstage will be two pivoting structures that have yet to be figured out. . .

The elevation for “Into the Woods” has been seen and approved by the director (Jim Butchart), and our TD seems to think it’s buildable and won’t break the bank (of course, we haven’t gotten into all the bits and pieces yet) — so it’s time to move onto “Romeo and Juliet,” our show at the end of the Spring semester. We have a production meeting this afternoon, so I’m working up some preliminary doodles. The director (Angela Iannone) has decided to go with a steampunk look to the play. Structurally, we’re trying to develop two pivoting tower elements down and center which will keep the action down in front and provide the bits and bobs required for the various scenes — she would really like to keep changes seamless and swift and not bring items on if it can be helped. She’d also like to use projections to help establish mood and locale, so we’re going to want some sort of surface upstage. I’ve been looking at Victorian gasworks. . .

Almost finished with the elevation, so I asked Jim Butchart (the director) to take a look. He approved. I still have to allow a bit of space off right to allow the Narrator to slip off beside the tree, which means opening the main act a foot, which means revealing more structure stage left as well. Now to run it past our TD (Steve Chene) and see if we can build it. . .

“Into the Woods” on the drafting table, developing the elevation. With all the layers of trees and structure, I’m drawing from the front to back. In this image, the downstage most sets of trees have been finished.

Taking the aerial view from the Sketchup rough work-up of Into the Woods, I’m working up the groundplan. It may seem a bit of a backwards way to work, but I find that while Sketchup is good for tossing around basic structures, once you get into thinking about detail, you have to figure out how to build the detail before you can add the detail to the model. It’s easier to simply draw it, and then, once I know how the detail works on paper, I can go back and build it in the 3D space. More useful accidents happen on paper.

I’ve laid out the footprint of the space, made some changes, and will now take this preliminary groundplan and work up an elevation in which I can incorporate more detail (that Russian Constructivist book open in the corner is informing things — the director would like climbables. . .). Then it will be back to the groundplan to work in those discoveries.

At the same time, there are all the costume design projects from Intro to Theatre I have to get graded. . .

And “Into the Woods” hits the drafting table.

This is a photo of the drafting table last week as I was finishing up the elevation of acts one and three. Construction has already begun; it’s a good thing that our TD (Steve Chene) and I have established a pretty good system of working together. I can get him partial drawings or sketchup models if time is crunched, and with some talking through things he has enough information to get tech drawings generated. Very important when you’ve got students in the shop waiting for things to do — and deadlines to meet. . . and “Into the Woods” to get designed. . .

That being said, here’s Steve with some of the students bolting together the central pivoting platform. Those large shapes behind them are pieces of Zeze’s garret.

TA Thad measures stuff.

TA Keri and Intro student Samantha working on another piece of Zeze’s garret.

And finally, since the Dupont’s parlor will feature a gradated paint treatment, here is my first experimental stab at working out the colors and the gradation.

Now that “Dracula” has been struck and the Hicklin restored to classroom set-up, we head into the construction of “Jack and the Magic Beans.” Most of the pieces have been cut out and primed already, so now we begin laying out patterns and some basic color fill-in.

This is Intro student Jeffry laying out the internal lines for the town groundrow.

And student Megan painting the the supports of the sun. The other tripod past her is the support for the cloud.

Then finally, while the students are in the shop working on “Jack,” I head back to my office to finish working up the final groundplan of “Anything to Declare?”

Working up the second act of “Anything to Declare?”, namely Zeze’s garret of art and seduction. The first and third acts went a bit circus-y, and now we’re looking at ways to make the garret feel a bit cubist-y. I just sent this image to the director (Jim Butchart) and our TD (Steve Chene) for feedback.

The shows come thick and fast. “Jack and the Magic Beans” is in the shop, and today I’m working up the first act groundplan for “Anything to Declare?” a French farce which is our December show. It’s also our ACTF entry, so it has to be designed with an eye toward possible portability, should we be chosen to present at January’s conference.