UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Some pictures from last night’s dress rehearsal. Once again, the temperature got down to an unseasonable 56 degrees. . .

. . . so as the night went on, all of us at the tech table donned hoodies and blankets. Here’s stage manager Claire and board operator Ashley against the skyline of Milwaukee at dusk.

In Sicilia, at the court of Leontes. Hermione convinces Polixenes to extend his visit. Our director, ML, was very pleased to discover that even though the show begins in daylight, lighting still brought a degree of dimensionality and interest to the stage. The stage floor will be painted tomorrow.

The trial of Hermione.

The top of the second act, as Time tells us we’ve jumped fifteen years forward.

The return to Sicilia, as Leontes and Paulina take about the dear deeparted Hermione.

Second day of tech, and this is the hand of our light board op, Ashley, as she practices running the board for the show. It’s an ETC Smartfade, for which I have developed a deep and abiding hatred. Since we have 24 dimmers, we can’t run it as a straightforward 2 scene preset, which would have made life much, much easier, and actually recording a cue means creating and playing back pages and stacks, which means once something is recorded (and the manual is by no means clear on how to do this) it becomes very complicated to make any adjustments. There is a way to use it as a one scene ‘preset,’ setting up a cue with all 24 faders, hitting “Next”, setting up the next cue, and then fading into it with the crossfaders. However, there are times it mysteriously hangs onto levels, and if you try to do a manual fade within an established look, the board gets confused and things track forward and there’s no easy way to get back to where you want to be without screwing with the live look on stage as you try to back out of it. I hate this board. Hate it, hate it, hate it, and would prefer it if ETC went back to making the old MicroVision. That board would have been dandy for this space, equipment, and show.

Here’s production manager Bo Johnson working on getting the sound equipment set up.

We are performing on a hillside overlooking the river on the near north side of Milwaukee. Here’s the view slightly east, looking toward the Lake. As it gets darker, the lights come on, and it is quite lovely — though it has been rather cold these past few nights, and everyone at the tech table (myself included) have been bundling up under blankets to run the show.

Yesterday was our first rehearsal on the stage for the Optimists’ “The Winter’s Tale,” their offering for Milwaukee’s free Shakespeare in the Park.

Here’s the space, with the set loaded in. We finished up focus, or rather what passed for focus in full daylight. Later on, after sunset, many discoveries were made and either exploited or corrected.

We’ve got four 6 dimmer Leprecon packs, with 1.2 k dimmers. Most of the ERS’s we borrowed are 750 watt. Which means careful balancing of loads as we cue. I had originally planned to use the front of house units to break the stage up side, center, and side, but since I couldn’t play them at more than 40% without popping breakers, I realized that since one unit comfortably covered the whole stage, I could turn them into tonality units — each got its own color. I might not be able to pull focus, but at least I have a wider variety of atmospheres.

With the sprinkler running all day to water the newly laid sod, it got rather muddy. Here’s artistic director, scenic designer, and actor Ron laying a spare platform over the mud pit in the stage right vom, as director ML looks on.

Here some of the actors work with the fabric they will use to create the storm.

And when it’s a young company mounting only their second outdoor show, it pays to come prepared. I hadn’t heard anyone talk about a tech table, so I brought my own.

This is the black box space at Wisconsin Lutheran College, where the Optimists have been rehearsing “The Winter’s Tale.” That’s Claire, one of the stage managers, at the table on the right. It’s a small, tall space.

While watching rehearsal last night (which was the second full run through) I started putting together the plot — shades of La Musica Lirica, though at least this time around I know ahead of time how many units and how many dimmers I have to play with. We’ll have 24 1.2k dimmers (4 Leprecon packs with 6 dimmers apiece), but since power is limited, nothing can really play at full. The place we’re borrowing units from had all the radial Altman 6x’s you could hope for, but they were all lamped at 750 watts. They were also filthy, so an afternoon last week was spent cleaning mud out of lens trains.

One of the other challenges of the show will be where to put units. There’s no grid, though there is some 2×2 square steels structure that supports the plastic canopies. They’ve cantilevered two pipes out over the front of the structure to create locations for some steep front light (and I hope the curve of the canopies won’t get in the way of getting light upstage) and I built two floor mount horses that I will place out in the tiers of seating for downstage front light. Everything on the ground will have to get struck each night, and reset before each performance. . .

A reminder of the what the performance venue looks like.

Today’s project is working up a rendering of “Deathtrap” for tonight’s first rehearsal. Having started out way back in high school with mechanical drafting, my drawing has always had a rather schematic look to it.

And, my other Callas book arrived in the mail today. More preparation for this August’s “Master Class” at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.

The semester’s over. I’m trying to cut back a little this summer in order to have a little down time, so I’m only going to be working on four shows. First, I’ve signed on to do lighting for the Optimists’ production of “The Winter’s Tale,” which is their Shakespeare in the Park offering in Milwaukee this summer, and will open the second week in June. This is the pavilion in which we will play:

As befits the pavilion, the director has chosen to go with a somewhat “Star Trek” informed aesthetic. Since it won’t be dark until halfway through the show, and we’ll have maybe 24 dimmer tops, lighting will be — well, minimal yet inventive. We’ve been discussing handheld LEDs and solar powered actor manipulated sources.

I’m still working on the two UW-Whitewater Summeround shows, though I’m designing and then handing them off to our TD. Here’s the groundplan for “Muskie Love,” hot off the drafting table.

The last project of the summer will be lighting “Master Class” for Milwaukee Chamber Theatre in August. So a little reading up is in order:

Here are a few pictures from last night’s final dress rehearsal of Theatre Gigante’s “Midsummer in Midwinter.” We open tonight. Written by Isabelle Krajl and Mark Anderson, directed by Isabelle Krajl, a little buit of set help from me (as much as could be done), and my lighting design using the space’s rep plot (and as much as could be added. . . which wasn’t much.

Tech week continues for Theatre Gigante’s “Midsummer in Midwinter.” Here’s the stage under worklights as we get ready to roll. There are two musicians who spend the show on the small platform up right. The two blonde chairs up left were set there both as symbol and to balance against the musicians. We’re cutting those. The columns (there are four, one at each corner of the playing space) are the only things we are allowed to alter, so we’ve painted them to look like the design on the posters. I traced out the trees, and actor and company co-founder Mark has been filling them in with brown paint.

Here we are in preset, with stage manager Therese answering dancer Edwin’s question. That’s Bo on the right.

And here’s my tech table. The “booth” is a table set off in the corner with just enough space for the SM and sound and light operators. There are no head sets. So I’m tucked up in a corner with a clip light and my script, furiously taking notes which we then put into the board at the end of the evening. Not the first time, won’t be the last.

Getting ready for a run through for Theatre Gigante’s “Midsummer in Midwinter.” It’s being mounted in a black box space at the UW-Milwaukee’s Peck Center for the Arts. We open this Friday and Monday night was our first rehearsal in the space. I spent the afternoon finishing focus and getting the fabric hung — it’s a small show with a negligble budget. The lighting is pretty much the fixed rep plot (which we’re not allowed to move) and about 12 more dimmers (1.2 k) with a handful of assorted units from their storeroom.

This is the tech table/booth back in the corner, with Sam, the sound operator killing a bit of time.

Now that “Romeo and Juliet” is up and running, I’m moving onto a show in Milwaukee at Theatre Gigante, “Midsummer in Midwinter.” Their regular lighting design, Rick Graham, was unable to take on this show, so I was asked to come on board. I last worked with Theatre Gigante back in 1998 on their dance version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Back then, they were known as Milwaukee Dance Theatre. After classes, I’ve been driving out to watch rehearsals (we load in on Sunday night). Here’s our stage manager, Therese, at the rehearsal table.