UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Construction continues on “Blithe Spirit!”

Here is TD Lilliana installing baseboard, next to the unpainted fireplace.

It’s also light hang day. Student lighting designer Sam is augmenting his rep plot. Here’s Alexa, hanging a light behind the set:

And Sam himself atop a ladder:

I took the fireplace back into the shop to add the trim to create the look of inset panels:

And then gave it a wash of paint before a coat of stain/sealer:

I added the hedgerow on the bottom of the sky flat that morning, and here’s Nathan helping to install it:

A backstage view of the flat installation:

“Mary, Mary,” has opened and closed! The audiences enjoyed it, we had pretty full houses, and from all reports, smooth running. Here are a few photos from final dress:

We are now in the midst of conversion to “Blithe Spirit.” The plan has been to keep the walls up, repaint them, turn some of the doors into the bookshelves, move the window to a different door opening, and add a fireplace. Exterior flats get repainted as well.

Here’s TD Lilliana working on a table that wobbled:

The walls, repainted to a cheery yellow:

Working on the sky of the garden flat:

My project last week was to build the fireplace. Here’s the start:

And a little further along:

As mentioned in the last post, I just finished drafting the set design for Angel Street. Since we were also in the midst of “Triumph of Love” I didn’t have much time to work up a detailed virtual model, but here’s an idea of what we’re heading for:

Megan has taken on the role of assistant scenic designer, and one of her recent assignments was to work up the paint treatments for the walls. Here she is with the first iteration of colors:

“Triumph of Love” is done and struck, and Dancescapes is now in production. I just finished drafting “Angel Street.” More about all of those in another post, soon!

In the meantime, here are Megan and Nathan with their completed Brick projects for the scenic painting seminar:

And a shot of Megan practicing her graining, for the coming wainscotting project!

The scenic painting seminar students just turned in their first major assignment, Lining a Lichtenstein. It’s all about color matching, image transfer, and using a lining stick. They done good!

It’s the end of the semester, and our third show has come and gone already. “Ghosts” was directed by Bruce Cohen, and featured scenery by student Lilliana Gonzalez, and props by student Alex Carey. My big project on this one was painting the drop that hung upstage beyond the windows and French doors. Here’s one end of it still on the floor as I was completing it:

One of the props was a painting that had to be worked on (and we’re in thrust configuration, mind you) AND destroyed every night by the actor:

The director wanted to immerse the audience in the Alving’s living space, so we had walls that wrapped most of the way around the seating area. Also in this picture is the model of the school that serves as a major plot point, and serves as a focal point for the space:

Here’s a view upstage during one of the dress rehearsals:

And one that covers more of the playing space:

And our second show of the semester was “Devon’s Hurt.” We do one performance on campus, and then tour it to area schools. This one had a student lighting designer, Megan Grove, creating her first realized lighting design. Here is the show in the Barnett Theatre in preset:

And two scenes:

And two photos taken by the student stage manager Michelle at two of the schools they toured to:

That’s director Kymberly Mellen there in the foreground watching the set up.

A few weeks ago, we opened our final production of the season “Strong Poison.” Here are some photos from the final dress rehearsal:

And since we’re also in the final week of classes now heading toward exam week, here are the projects students in the scenic painting independent study seminar are working on:

We’re doing an independent study seminar on scenic painting this semester, and the three students have finished their first major project — “Lining a Lichtenstein.” This project is intended to exercise transferring and enlarging an image, color matching, observing detail, and working on lining with a lining stick. Here are Alex, Michelle, and Emily proudly presenting their finished work!

We opened “Street Scene” on Sunday. The past few weeks were very busy, and I did not manage to take much in the way of process photos. However, below are pictures from the final dress rehearsal on Friday. Of note are the student stage manager, student sound designer, student supertitle designer, and the fact that I had a student ALD helping me on the lighting (I did both scenery and lighting design on this one). It was directed by Kymberly Mellen, who is new to our department this year. Cast-wise, it’s the largest number of performers on the stage since I’ve been here at Whitewater, and a two story set added to the technical complexity. We made it to the finish line, though.

The top of the show, and how hot it is:

Mrs. Maurrant sings of her loniliness and how trapped she feels:

Mr. Easter tries to tempt Rose with Broadway:

“It’s a murder!”

Rose confronts her father after his capture:

And the cycle continues — how hot it is. . .