UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

First day of classes, first day of production meetings and the return to Aladdin.  Aladdin is our second show of the semester, and is a children’s piece that we tour to various schools and venues throughout southeastern Wisconsin.  This, of course, means that while we have one fully mounted performance in the Barnett Theatre, the set must fit in the back of a van and be flexible enough to accomodate theatres, classrooms, gyms, and cafeterias, all with widely varying dimensions and accomodations.

I finally made it over to visit Tara Ayres, co-artistic director of Madison’s Stage Q Theatre.   At the annual Bartell Theatre Awards a few weeks ago, she accepted the award on my behalf since I was unable to attend the party.   The Bartell Theatre houses a group of Madison’s community theatres — Stage Q, Strollers, Mercury Theatre, among others — and every year they collectively give awards for the ‘best’ elements produced under the Bartell’s aegis.   Mine is for ‘best set design’ for Stage Q’s “Ghost of a Chance” this past November.

At what served as the tech table for “Music  in the Air.”  That’s costume designer Tracey Lyons (a colleague at UW-Whitewater), director Greg Ganakis, and Scott, the light board operator who was rather left in charge of the partially completed lighting design the final two nights (he kept up though!).  Also note the lack of stage manager, as the sole member of stage management (as well as the only crew member for a cast of 80, which included children and a cast member with early onset Alzheimer’s), Kaylee Oost, was running all the props backstage.  NO ONE CALLED THIS SHOW.   Oh, and no headsets either.  The Whitewater students who thought they were on the run crew were never told when to show up, and all backstage crew was finally cut by the producer on Wednesday, though no one from Music on the Lake ever bothered to contact them.  It’s a wonder there is any one is smiling in this photo.

During tech;  set up for Ernst’s office.

A slightly blurry photo the day after load-in.  The road cases on stage are sound and lights getting set up.  This is the first day with the actors (all seventy plus of them) on the full set.  The panels are shown with the “Munich” side.

Tada!  The organ is NOW a piano!

The two downstage sets of flats for “Music in the Air.”  Load in on Sunday.    Should be exciting.

The swirly patterned “Munich’ side of the flip panels for “Music in the Air.”  Inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt.

First scenic flat for “Music in the Air” painted with our stained glass approach.

Day two of organ construction for “Music in the Air.”