UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

With the curved walls I am planning to use for “Come Back,” I decided it would be best to play with a model before committing myself to the drafting (I also need to run this permutation past the director, and she’s proven more receptive to models rather than 2D images),

Here’s the deck in the theatre’s box. We’re staging it in the corner of the Hicklin.

Even though the curved walls will do the bulk of the masking, I’m considering staggered tops, and with the audience sitting along both sides of the playing space, making the back walls blue seems like a good idea. They will be darker blue than the walls themselves, though.

A run (after several previous runs) at the clouds that will be painted on the curved walls. Not quite the clouds of my photos, but getting much closer. Clouds are hard. . .

Returning from a trip to Appleton, WI, I ran across these clouds, which are the exact clouds I want to paint onto the walls for “Come Back.”

One of the reasons I’m not fond of model building is the time it takes to wait for the glue to dry before you can do the next thing. I have little patience for that. In any event, I’ve cut down the planks and glued them onto the platforming. These will get piled with books and left to dry. On looking at what I’ve got, I’ve decided to wash the planking down with greys and browns to darken the floor more and gently suggest dirt and the road. That will happen after everything has set for a while.

The piece of Bristol board painted sky blue will be the facing for the raised platform area.

Now that “Master Class” is open, it’s back to departmental shows. Our first of the year is Neil Haven’s “Come Back,” so here’s the drafting table as I begin to work out the ground plan. Since the set is mainly comprised of curved walls, I’ve decided to work out the ground plan via a model to get a better handle of the spatial relationships and distances.

And here is the beginning of the wood plank floor:

It’s final dress for “Muskie Love” tonight. Here are the renderings and the groundplan pinned to the hallway bulletin board outside the theatre. When I started at Whitewater, I discovered that most of the Intro students doing their shop hours really didn’t have a sense of what the final product was to be, so I started hanging the drawings up outside our TD’s office so if they were at least interested, they could go take a look.

A view of the stage from one end. . .

. . . and the view from the other.

Roy’s bait shop sign. Since I’m not painting this summer in an attempt to let my hands have a break from the carpal tunnel, all the painting was done by students (and our TD, Steve) without my immediate supervision. I think they did a pretty solid job of it (though I apparently forget to tell them to age the fish as they did the letters — my fault, since they were working off a photo for that).

Finally, I’ve got “Master Class” on the drafting table. This is a lighting design for an August production at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. I have to get the plot and hookup finished and sent off no later than Thursday night.

The build for “Muskie Love” continues:

Here’s the completed boat that will be pushed around via foot power. . .

Kat works on the muskie part of the Roy’s bait shop sign. . .

. . . while Anastasia works on the lettering.

The floor treatment for Roy’s bait shop and the dock.

One of the gimmicks of the show is fishing in a boat the actors push around with their feet.

Paint treatment for Roy’s sign and the boat.

And down in the theatre, the floor is primed for the floor treatment. . .

As stage manager/propsmistress/painter Alison watches TD Steve Chene mix color for the floor. That’s Cat hiding behind the door, there.

With “Deathtrap” closing this weekend, production work continues apace on “Muskie Love.”

Here, leaning against the wall in the Hicklin are the two platformed areas — to the left is the dock and to the right is Roy’s Bait Shop.

On lovely, sunny days, we open the shop doors and do a little work on the loading dock. This is stage manager Alison, who is also doing a fair amount of painting and prop work on the show. She, Anastasia, and Cat are all base painting Roy’s sign.

On the drafting table, the last plate for “Muskie Love” is done — the boat, the counter, and some crates.

Which means I can move onto further paint elevations. Here, things dry for the dock and shop, with a little help from Jerome Robbins.

Meanewhile, beginning on drafting for “Muskie Love.”

While I was off driving back and forth to Milwaukee for “The Winter’s Tale,” Steve (our TD) and the students made headway on “Deathtrap.”

It’s in the round but on the stage of our proscenium space, as the black box is seeing refurbishment this summer. It will also feature the new risers we got last year.

Since there’s a fair amount of staircase action, here’s the staircase, built into one of the voms.

And here are students Joe and Alison (who is stage managing “Muskie Love,” the next show) working on the french doors in the another vom.