UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Yesterday afternoon production activities for the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.”

First, I finished up the fifth and sixth portal flats. . .

. . . as I was applying the final clouds and shading, students were readying them for hanging. Here’s Intro student James stapling up some of the flappy excess muslin around the edges. . .

. . . and TA Logan working with some Intro students on attaching the hanging irons.

In the Barnett, electrics work was wrapping up. The hang is done, and we’re about to move onto focus (in fact, we focused some units as part of that morning’s Intro to Tech class). Here’s TA Quinn and TA Joe at the tech table talking about some notes.

We also got the frames for the house (at least, the lower section) and shed up, so now the actors have doorways!

More updates from the UW-Whitewater theatre department as we continue production work on the upcoming opera, “The Tender Land.”

Steve, our TD, needed to leave early on Friday, so after he got everything rolling, he left TA Allison in charge of shop activities. Here is Allison working with Intro student Shelby on installing the painted planks of the shed porch.

You can see the 1st Electric behind them, and TA Quinn worked with other students on circuiting. Here’s Intro student Zach with Quinn working on the 2A Electric.

Here’s another group of students (I think that’s Bruce there in the black shirt, center) working upstage on the 2B and 3rd Electrics.

Over in the shop, painting continued. Here is Intro student James painting the planks and fascia for the house porch, with another student in back there priming things like the benches.

And I continued work on the fifth and sixth portal flats. At the end of the day, this one was almost done (except for clouds and barbed wire). . .

. . . and this one was getting close (clouds, house, windmill. . . ).

Yesterday’s progress on the upcoming UW Whitewater’s production of Aaron Copland’s opera “The Tender Land.” We’ve started hanging lights this week, and here we see TD and lighting designer Steve Chene explaining the applicable portions of the plot to a group of Introduction to Theatre students:

And here they are, a bit later, deep in the circuiting of the second electric:

Another major task for the day was to open the orchestra pit, partly to get the music director and conductor (Prof. Bob Gehrenbeck) into his performance location so the actors can get used to looking for him there, but also because the actors now need to get used to the fact that there is indeed this large hole downstage. Because the stage is never as large as it seems on paper, we’ve gone ahead and left in the two end plugs (in the points); my first task of the day was to paint those to match the rest of the floor.

After which, I went back to the second set of portal flats. Here’s one, complete and ready to go up. .

. . . and the other, just waiting on its clouds.

And up the flats go, while electrics work continues.

This afternoon we had production meetings for both “The Furies” and “The Tender Land,” which meant I was there rather than painting in the shop. Still, they were productive meetings, and particularly for “The Furies,” lots of good stuff was figured out.

The other week I watched an episode of “NOVA” on PBS about the search for the Higgs Boson, and near the end of the program a physicist walked up into this arrangement of metal plates suspended on rods that he proceeded to tap to create vibrations. It was a very interesting look, and one that I passed by our director (Angela Iannone) — luckily, she’d also seen the program and knew exactly what I was talking about.

So, when we’re in Delphi, there will be jagged shards of metal suspended on thin ropes. When we go to Athens, we will pull up strips of white China silk to create “columns.” In short, civilization replacing barbarism.

The other thing to be decided was whether to pursue the semi-circular stage configuration I’d first proposed, or to push things to the side and go with a more angular arrangement. Angela liked the more angular arrangement. In my sketchbook (pictured above) the left side features the old semi-circular look and the right side features the newer more angled version.

There will be a fair amount of pictorial paint work on this show. Our TD has told he will build the portal flats this coming week so I can attack those first. That means working out the paint elevations, of course, so here’s the first half, for stage right. Again, borrowing from great American artists like Grant Wood, Alexandre Hogue, and Thomas Hart Benton.

The drafting for the upcoming UW Whitewater production of Copland’s “The Tender Land” is done, so I’m turning my attention to painting. Here is the ground row, in progress.

I was already pulling a lot from American artists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, but a colleague from the art department dropped by and told me I should also look up the work of Alexander Hogue. His feminization of landscape is the most overt of these three artists, and boy, am I glad Prof. Wilk made me aware of his work!

Classes begin next week, and amid syllabi and lesson plans, it’s time to get back to the drafting table and crank out the last few plates for UW-Whitewater production of Copland’s “The Tender Land.”

Here’s yesterday’s progress on the elevation:

And today’s work on the section:

I really need to clean my triangles. . .

The students in the Introduction to Theatrical Design presented their final projects (lighting design) this morning. Lots of good work. Most of them found themselves surprised they actually rather were getting into lighting. One of the senior acting students even said that he wanted to do more lighting!

Since we only have five weeks on lighting in the course, we focus on the start of the design process — from script analysis up to magic sheets and purpose lists.

(yes, she knows she misspelled “Rashomon.” And yes, she was suitably embarrassed. . . )

And despite it being finals week, work continues on the Spring productions. Here’s a thumbnail of “The Furies,” with Athena. . .

. . . and where we’re leaving off on construction for “The Tender Land” as we head off to break. The floor is painted, the platforms are in place.

The call of the drafting table. With “Clybourne Park” bring struck this weekend, I’m pushing to get plates done so the building for “The Tender Land” can begin next week, which is also the last week of classes. The plan is to get the deck painted early in the week, so that platforming can go in at the end of the week; we’ll have levels in place for when rehearsals begin at the end of the winter break.

A return to the drafting table. After “Clybourne Park” opened yesterday, I had a chat with our TD about budgets; it’s a little grim at the moment (we are a state university, after all), so I’ve decided to cut the raked platform in the center of “The Tender Land” to try to save a few pennies. I would be nice to have it, and would really give definition to the yard area, but we can survive without it. When the platform went away, I also had to reconsider other platform heights — the director, for instance, expressed interest in having the porch high enough that the platform became easily sittable.