UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

With “The Tender Land” running, I’ve ramped up work on “The Furies,” getting a rough model put together for Angela (our director) to use in rehearsal. It will also help clarify much of what’s happening in pile-of-platform land. Here is the model set up for Delphi:

And here it is set up for Athens:

Since the budget is pretty tight on this one, we’re going for cheap yet effective. The platforming is intended to be all stock, the white strips are all white parachute silk we had in storage, Athena’s a flat paint and fabric hybrid, and all those shards will be broken up masonite scraps strung on manila cord. Fingers crossed.

We opened “The Tender Land” on Sunday, so here are a few photos from the final dress rehearsal on Saturday.

Directed by Jim Butchart, scenic design by Eric Appleton, costume design by Tracey Lyons, lighting design by Steve Chene, props manager student Quinn Bauer, Music Director and conductor Bob Gehrenbeck, stage managed by student Allison Lozar.

I was learning a new camera, so between it and the LED fixtures (which, we’re finding, play havoc with digital cameras) out of the 300 shots I took, about forty were decent, even even those had a fair amount of image blowout on the actors and color shifting on costumes.

First, here are stage manager Allison and backstage crew member Lilliana having a brief break after the stage is swept and mopped:

The party scene, as Laurie emerges from the house:

The end of act two, as Laurie decides to leave the farm for good:

And while my camera has trouble with real things, it does have a number of built in filters. Here’s a moment of the party scene through the sepia filter:

We had a production meeting for “The Furies” this afternoon (the show goes up at the end of April), and the director (Angela Iannone) approved my platform arrangement and the general direction of things. I said I would have the revised groundplan for everyone on Tuesday next week.

Last night was first dress for the UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land,” which was also our first night with the full orchestra. Scenically, we’re in a good place — it’s down to details now. I spent some time this afternoon working on the windmill, and I must say I’m rather happy with how the blades turned out:

This gets attached to an old color wheel motor and placed atop the tower:

We had it in place for the evening’s run; in order not to become a spinning distraction, it rotates at the top of the show until Laurie’s entrance, and at the end of the show, after Laurie’s exit (the winds of change. . . ).

We also continued with clapboarding the house. Here are Bruce and Brendan working on that project:

Last night was the second technical rehearsal for the UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” While the stage crew was sweeping and mopping, I took a few photos of the the stage in its state of near completion (the cyc and scrim have yet to be stretched which is why they’re wrinkly upstage, there):

Yesterday afternoon the porch went up, roof pieces were attached, and window were installed. Today we’ll be attacking the clapboarding on the house, which is the last large project — other than the windmill.

Crates and barrels had finish painting done (don’t forget to re-establish the stave edges on the barrels or they end up very 2D).

And some tonal glazing was done on the shed and fence(broom included for scale).

Just before curtain, everyone settles into position. We have Jim Butchart (director), student assistant directors, student sound and electrics head, stage manager, light board op, and Steve Chene, exchanging his TD hat for his LD hat.

Finally, some photos from the run:

Last night was first tech for the UW-Whitewater’s production of “The Tender Land.” We’re still working on the set (which is what sometimes happens when the TD has to split time between being the TD and being the lighting designer and it all has to happen at the same time). The two larger things that need to get installed is the porch (posts and headers) and the split rail fence along the upstage walkway. Oh, and the clapboarding for the house. It’s all built, and I expect will get installed this afternoon. In fact, here’s Intro student Josiah cutting the last few holes in the fenceposts yesterday afternoon:

I finished the groundrow:

And here it is, installed behind the scrim:

In the evening, as we got ready to get rolling, here is a shot of the tech table, with board operator Jennifer with TD/LD Steve Chene beyond:

And stage manager Allison figuring out some cuing in her prompt book:

Finally, the actors do their vocal warmups at the edge of the pit, led by music director/conductor Bob Gehrenbeck:

Oh, and then of course, earlier in the day I started working up the revised groundplan for “The Furies,” and here it is on the drafting table, under my lists and fresh platfrom cut-outs which will be used for the next stab at a model of the pile of platforms. . .

Continuing progress on the UW-Whitewater production of Aaron Copland’s “The Tender Land.” The last few days have been busy. While Steve Chene (our TD and lighting designer for this show) is on stage focussing, I’ve been in the shop painting and supervising painting. The groundrow is my last big painting project, and yesterday I had students painting benches and crates and shed doors. The last construction bits included cutting holes for rails in fence posts and cutting strips of corrugated metal for the shed roof. Which I’ll have to paint tomorrow. . .

Here’s a shot of the stage at the end of the day. The cyc has been unbundled and is hanging to allow some of the wrinkles to fall out, though we will be stretching it (and probably misting it) later on. That piece of painted stone work up center is not part of the set; Steve was probably using that to stand in for the groundrow as he focussed.

I touched base with the director of the upcoming production of Aeschylus’s “The Furies” (late April), Angela Ianonne, this morning to talk about the pile of uneven and angled platforms. She liked where I was going, so my next step will be to figure out how to draft the pile. . .

Further work on the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land” from yesterday afternoon’s shop session. At this point, Steve Chene, our Technical Director and lighting designer on this production was on stage with the electrics crew forging ahead on the focus. By the end of the day, they’d gotten most of the front of house focussed. In the shop, smaller things were going on, like Intro student James and TA Logan boring and cutting out holes in the fence posts. . .

I was hitting some of the smaller paint projects, and with the final two portal flats finished, starting on laying out the groundrow. Here’s the elevation on the drafting table, marked up with measurements to help me figure out where everything goes when I blow it up to real size:

And here is the real size groundrow:

At the end of the day, Steve wrapped up focus, so here’s a view of the stage from behind the tech table. All the portal flats are up, and the frame structure for the house and the shed are in place. Over on the left, you can see folks working on the ladder up to the second story window.

At the same time, work rolls forward on “The Furies.” I’ve begun figuring out the grounplan, and one of the tricky bits will be the arrangement of slanted and ‘broken’ pavement. Here’s a go with bits of illustration board cut into stock platform sizes:

And then to start working with height, a revision using foamcore platforms glued together to make 6″ thick platforms.

Now I have to show this to the director (Angela Iannone) and see what she thinks. . .

Yesterday saw work on the final two portal flats for the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” After this, of course, I will have to paint the groundrow. I thought I might be interesting to snap a photo of one of the flats at each step of the process.

First, here’s the palette of colors (I’ve just finishing stirring them at the start of the work session):

The other week, I based in shades of tan — lighter near the horizon line, and darker in the foreground — to help give a unified tonality to the whole piece, and to help create a sense of distance.

While it may or may not make sense from a painterly/fine art standpoint, it made sense for this project to base in the tree masses as the next step. The paint I’m using is pretty dilute scenic paint, so the approach is more watercolory than oil paintery; it’s really hard to lighten something back up once you’ve got paint down.

After the trees (mind you, you’ve got two flats going, so while one dries I work on the other. Back and forth, back and forth. . . ), I added the layers of ground. You can see the paint elevation on my handy little stand there. It’s covered in Saran Wrap to prevent splashed of paint from getting onto the original. This flat is the one on the far right of the elevation — it’s drawn in 1/2″ equals 1 foot scale.

Then I go back and start adding light and shade to my sylized tree and bush masses.

Now we’re heading into textures and detail. The plow lines and fence posts are also added.

Some more detail in the house and fence posts, some stylized stems and trunks, and some more lines of color to help create the plowed and planted fields. Those yellow dots on the bushes will become the centers of flowers.

Now is a good time to lay in the three sky colors, blending from darkest at the top to lightest at the bottom.

Barbed wire and the windmill. Also some flowers on the darker set of bushes.

This afternoon, clouds and done.