UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

We’re days away from the first tech of “The Furies” here at the UW-Whitewater. Actually, we have dry tech this afternoon, and first tech Thursday evening. We’re in pretty decent shape, I think.

Yesterday afternoon the shard curtains, now complete, were moved into position. . .

. . . and here’s Intro student Kim way upstage there working on the short traveller track for the curtains that close off the upstage space. . .

. . . and then an action shot of TA Thad and Intro student Mason tying blacks onto the traveller.

The Navelstone platform proved a bit on the large side, we we ended up trimming it down and adding some extra platforming way upstage to allow for better movement and storage. Here’s Kim again, with TA Bruce and Braden working on that:

Meanwhile, I was in the shop working on the 15 foot tall Athena:

We have a production meeting for this summer’s “Arrangement for Murder, No. 2” so here’s an image of the set as it currently stands. The director likes it, though I haven’t yet passed it by our technical director (though I don’t see any issues from his end), and I do still need to put in the overhead lighting fixture.

Here are pictures from yesterday’s work on “The Furies.” First, the hanging of the shards continues. getting started:

And moving along:

Here’s TA Thad working on the rolling stairs which will enable to jurors to get up to their platforms:

And Intro to Tech students Teresa and Josiah painting some scrim scraps black to help mask the lighting instruments (audience blinders) tucked underneath the platforming:

Athena’s been cut out, and waits to be framed. There will be a doorway through her lower half, covered with fabric (her skirts), through which the actor playing Athena will emerge.

I finally got the danged snake onto the Navelstone:

And got it painted. Done.

Updates on the UW-Whitewater’s upcoming production of “The Furies.” Here’s the stage in the Barnett. The platforming is all in place, though there is facing and stone paintwork to be done. The lights are hung and waiting to be circuited, and all the shard curtains strings have been tied to eyehooks on battens and will start getting their shards today.

Speaking of shard curtains, here’s Braden tying those pieces of twine to the eyehooks. . .

. . . and Mason and Bruce doing a little untangling. We decided that each string will be loaded with the proper number of shards, tied off at the bottom, and the placement for each shard measured from the top, raising the batten as we progress. The tedium continues. . .

This is a picture of the path that Clytemnestra takes around the stage, pushed on her wagon. I will be somehow incorporating this path into the stone work.

The navelstone is, well, sort of done. The leaves have been attached and painted.

Here’s the rolling base for the navelstone, with steps for Hermes.

I say sort of because the snake has to be completed and attached. I discovered that my approach of wrapping ethafoam in muslin will not work — it’s just not flexible enough. I have asked our costume shop supervisor if she’ll sew me a very long tube, which I will then fill with. . . something cheap and available.

Here’s props manager Allson working on arrow ends for Apollo’s quiver:

Finally, work has begun on our giant Athena. Makenzie, Jennifer, and Bruce projected and traced the image, and are here seen to begin cleaning up their tracing, straightening and smoothing lines before it gets cut out.

Continuing work on the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Furies”!

First, a visit to the costume shop, where we find the masks of the Furies themselves. . .

. . . and student Amy (who is also a nationally ranked champion swimmer!) working on the noise rattling juju bracelets. . .

. . . while up in the Barnett, light hang begins. Here’s TD Steve Chene working with two students from the Intro to Tech class (Josiah, and it looks like Shelby standing behind him) on the cyc electric. Student Logan Bydalek is designing the lighting for the show.

Here’s Steve in the shop working with TA Quinn and Intro student Joe on the short flight of stairs that will be set into the navelstone, allowing Hermes to ascend and pour water over Orestes.

Elsewhere in the shop, Logan works with Intro students Brandon and Joe on running some facing through the table saw.

In the hallway, Intro students Jennifer and Teresa cut the lengths of twine that will be used to string up the shards.

I continued work on the navelstone. Here’s the front half of the snake that twines around the stone. . .

. . . and went ahead and painted the stone itself. . .

. . . . only to realize I hadn’t put the leaves around the base. Looks like I will be doing some repainting today!

And while all this is going on, I’m also working on the set for the summer production of “Arrangement for Murder, No. 2.” Here’s where I am with the Sketchup model, after our production meeting conversation the other day:

It’s the end of the semester and we’ve got multiple shows in progress at the UW-Whitewater. Tech for “The Furies” draws closer, and last night the actors were able to rehearse in the Barnett on the platforming.

This picture is from two days ago, after Angela (the director) came up after the production meeting to take a look at it. She, Steve and I talked about a couple of the higher stack platforms and made a couple of adjustments.

I’ve continued to work on Apollo’s Navelstone. In this picture, I finally have the shape carved out of the block of foam.

And here it is yesterday afternoon after being slathered with Dan Katula’s recipe of Weld-Bond, paint, and toilet paper. It dried like concrete, which is nice, but on the other hand, a day later, there are still places where it’s not dry at all. So instead of doing some sanding and painting, I spent an hour working on the snake.

I think I came up with one of the most tedious scenic projects ever in the shard curtains. They may all be painted, but now each one needs a hole, after which they will be meticulously threaded onto heavy twine.

Yesterday we had our first production meeting for this summer’s “Suds.” I had checked in with the director, Skip Grover, on my direction, so I went ahead and presented a pretty much complete set at the meeting. Though I did forget to include the piano.

And even though “Arrangment for Murder, No. 2” is the first of the summer shows, I haven’t made as much progress on it as I have with “Suds.” Still, we have the first production meeting for that show later today, and I do have some preliminary thoughts to share.

Today’s progress on the UW-Whitewater production of “The Furies!” I managed to have the morning free, so I spent it in the shop working on the navelstone. It’s finally beginning to look like something.

Once shop hours started and students rolled in, Steve continued to work on the platform pile. Here he is with Intro students Kim and Jennnifer, explaining how to cut thin arcs from a sheet of masonite to create a lip around the edge of the central round platform. This will prevent the water poured over Orestes from trickling off everywhere. We’ll be putting a drain in, as well.

They cut them out, and went ahead and primed them:

We also finally finished painting all the shards. Here they are lying in the shop awaiting their final spatter. Now we have to thread the darned things.

Props manager Allison adds a glossy sheen to our black and white pottery shards. . .

. . .while TA Brian and Intro student Makenzie build the blocks that will be supports for the platform stack.

Which looks like this right now:

With Steve making an adjustment, as seen past all the drawings:

One of my other projects was to recover the seats of all the juror chairs. It’s always fun seeing what people have done to chairs through the previous decades. . . and I could have sworn I’d pulled ten chairs.

And finally, Dale Kaminski, in the Department of Art and Design, was kind enough to use their giant printer to print out the head of Apollo on canvas. Just have to trim it down and attach it to its frame.

Even though it’s past the middle of the semester, the production meetings have suddenly piled up. We’ve got our two Summeround shows (“Suds” and “Arrangement for Murder, No. 2”), and our first two Fall offerings (“I Hate Hamlet” and “Three Excellent Cows”) to start talking about. I had a few ideas for “Suds” and started working up sketches, which turned into a Sketchup frenzy. This morning I showed the director where I was heading; he liked it, so I kept going. One of the walls still needs its stripes, but this is pretty much what I will present at the production meeting.

Working on the drawings for “The Furies,” which will be produced by the UW-Whitewater department of Theatre/Dance in April (adapted and directed by Angela Iannone).

Doing the 3D model really helped me see into the platform stack, which really helped in working up the section — though I did discover an issue with borders that I will have to discuss with our TD.

Today’s plates head into the details. There won’t be all that many detail plates for this show, since beyond the platforms, there aren’t a lot of details. Here’s the plate (in progress) for the shard curtains and the navelstone.

Of course, the details are pretty detailed — the navelstone must allow Hermes to climb up and pour water over a kneeling Orestes, Athena will be huge, portable, and must allow the actual Athena to emerge from her skirts, etcetera. Less time at the drafting table, more time in the shop. But that’s okay.

Now that “The Tender Land” has been struck, the Barnett is getting ready for “Dancescapes,” our annual dance concert. I don’t have much to do with it, as Steve Chene (our TD) oversees the lighting students who will be working with the rep plot on their assigned pieces. The marley got rolled out yesterday, and here’s Steve talking with TAs Thad and Brandon about setting up the booms.

Meanwhile, TA Joe is training Intro student Mason on the board, as Mason will be the board operator for the concert.

In the shop, Emily and Emily (both in Intro) paint a wing flat black. Since the Barnett has a honking big apron (thank you Seventies architect) we need to place booms on the side stages (thank you Seventies architect) behind masking flats in order to get sidelight that far downstage.

I spent much of the afternoon in my office working on the section of “The Furies,” and figuring out how to better give Steve reasonably accurate measurements on all the angled platforms. I found the best way was to model it in Sketchup, and let Steve take measurements directly from the model.

Here’s the stack with a section plane down the center line, looking stage left.

Drafting away on the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Furies,” adapted and directed by Angela Iannone. Today’s project was the elevation (tomorrow, the section!). The difficult thing was figuring out how to draw all those randomly tilted platforms. . .