UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Things are getting more exciting than they should be. Our TD is out having surgery, so I’m finishing up the set in his stead. Because of other professional commitments, our director can only attend a single tech rehearsal, which has been rescheduled for bright and early Saturday morning. Oh, and the student assistant technical director is out with the stomach flu.

Meanwhile. . .

. . .the afternoon dry tech. Student lighting designer Nick, student stage manager Marguerite, and student sound designer Joe put things together at the tech table.

I used the Intro to Tech class today to get the rest of the over head truss pieces put together, the wooden railings assembled, and a push to get the upstage structure in place.

As the brick facing gets painted, it gets put back on the structure. This is one side of the gatehouse section.

Keri, Rasell, and Mike work on truss pieces that will form header pieces between the vertical perimeter structures. Mike is the student assistant TD on this show.

One of my painting projects for the afternoon was to start painting the vertical perimeter pieces.

Alyssa works on the poison bottle. The director has asked that it light up from within, so she and Keri have been devising a way to attach an LED to the base of the bottle.

Finally, the end of the day. That’s our TD, Steve, off to the side. Much facing has been reattached, and you can see all the vertical perimeter pieces that still need to get painted leaning up against the back wall. The horrible post-installation realization was that some of the masonite floor/facing pieces that I painted weren’t actually meant to be concrete, but wood. Ah, the importance of labeling.

Work on “Romeo and Juliet” continues.

Here is Erik, deeply engaged in the brickening. . .

. . . and here is the stained glass, now finished and sitting and waiting to dry and cure over night. . .

. . . meanwhile, in the Hicklen, the facening continues. Now that Dancescapes is over, we can move the set over to the Barnett. The facing has been stripped off the stage right unit and is awaiting painting, while in this photo, Thad and Molly finish up the facing for the stage left unit.

Finally, in the Design II seminar today, we took charcoal lighting sketches of Tony Kushner’s “Reverse Transcription” and put them up on their feet in the light lab. Here is the realization of Keri’s opening look.

“Anything to Declare?” opens this morning with our student matinee. Below are two photos from last night’s final dress.

A moment from the series of revelations late in Act Three (Act One takes place in the same locale — the Dupont’s parlor).

And a moment from Act Two, Zeze’s garret, when her maid comes to inform her that she has a vistor in the midst entertaining another vistor. . .

I must admit to be being happier with how the second act turned out. The wireframe elements that were supposed to top the walls for Act 1/3 didn’t work — the wire used was too soft and bendy and it was impossible to get the clean sweeps and swirls I’d hoped for. Oh well.

A hold moment during first tech last night. We’re just about to move the buzzer from the stage left side of the arch to the wall upstage of the stage left chair so the actor ringing it won’t have to upstage himself.

And a moment in the second act act. The paintings were created (painted adaptations of the source images) by student propmaster Nick Skaja.

Dry tech this afternoon, so here is director Jim Butchart sitting behind stage manager Alyssa and student lighting designer Nick as they work through the cues.

The stage set up for acts one and three, the Dupont parlor.

And the stage set up for act two, Zeze’s garret. Yes, there’s still a fair amount to get done on both sets. . .

. . . and here in the shop we have Intro students Annaliese and Kathy working on the wireframe cake toppers while. . .

. . . Intro student Hannah paints one of the easels.

Today, we got to a point where much of what was built is painted and can now start being assembled. Very exciting!

This is Zeze’s groundrow, which is the view through her tall artists garret windows out onto the alleys of Paris. The holes will get material and light so that it seems like someone is home.

Here is student lighting designer Nick Skaja focussing.

Meanwhile, in the shop, the window gets painted. . .

. . . the wireframe ‘cake toppers’ start to take shape. . .

. . . masking flats get based. . .

. . . and when lighting takes a break, walls go up. That’s TD Steve Chene in the forground, and Nick pointing up where one of Zeze’s practicals will get hung.

Now that Zeze’s walls are largely done with their paint treatment, all the sections of the Dupont parlor are laid out for their base color.

TA Alyssa measures a piece of our existing foam cornice to create duplicate pieces.

Student propmaster (and lighting designer) Nick has begun work on the show’s several pieces of art. The one with it’s back to us leaning against the rack will be doctored to allow it to be smashed over someone’s head, thus humorously replacing her head with that of the actor.

And finally, dying the settee cranberry.

With the structure of Zeze’s garret pretty much done, the shop is turning to the curved walls of the Dupont’s parlor. Here are students working on some of the door sections.

My project for the afternoon was getting the rest of Zeze’s walls painted with their “cubist” treatment.

All the walls were built in smaller sections (which made them much easier to paint, it must be said) because this production is our ACTF submission. Should it be chosen, we will have to transport it to the January conference.

More progress on “Anything to Declare?”!

Here are Intro students Molly and Maverick priming doors. . .

. . . and TAs Keri and Alyssa working with two more Intro students at the table saw cutting foam for the cornices. . .

. . . while in the Barnett, the walls for Zeze’s garret start getting their final paint treatment.