Today we had our first production meeting for the Fall children’s show, “Nate the Dragon.” It’s about a young dragon learns who he is, and everyone around him learning the value in valuing weirdness. It’s also the second Neil Haven play we’re doing this coming semester.
We’re heading into productions for our summer shows — “Muskie Love” and “Deathtrap.” Since the black box theatre will be undergoing renovations, we’ll be staging them in the round, but on the stage of the Barnett, our larger proscenium stage.
Here are some of the preliminary materials for “Muskie Love,” which is a version of “Much Ado About Nothing” on the shores of Green Bay with much mention of Muskies and the Packers:
And here are some of the preliminary doodles for “Deathtrap:”
Tonight is final dress, so we’re hitting the last things on the list.
Here’s Anna doing touch ups on the facing.
Joe teaches Alison how to use the band saw.
Joe adds the little lavender crenelations.
The beanstalk is now covered. Tomorrow, we paint.
The screens are mighty close to being done. They’re awfully busy, but then again, so are the research images.
Now that we’re back in session, we must forge ahead with “Dracula,” the first show of the season. This is a rendering of the finished version, with some added furniture. Yes, the whole set, including props and furniture, will be in black and white.
A nearby town, Sant’ Agata Feltria, is home to one of the oldest still extant wooden theatres in Northern Italy: Teatro Angelo Mariani Sant’agata Feltria. Verdi himself premiered operas here. We didn’t tour to this theatre, but it was close enough that Candace (director of Figaro), Renee (set designer/TD), Anna (SM for Figaro), and myself drove up the next morning to see the space.
Not the theatre yet, but a charming fountain we came upon as we left the parking lot.
The front of the theatre.
Once inside, you’re greeted by historic scenic art by Romolo Liverani.
Renee holds up the monograph on the scenic artist. It wasn’t for sale, and we resisted the urge to steal it.
Other drops were represented by smaller pictures of them.
The drop currently hanging has actual peepholes worked into it so that actors could look out at the audience from backstage. Here’s Renee demonstrating.
A slightly blurry photo of the stage.
And a view from the stage. Note the meagre front of house lighting positions to the right and to the left.
Note the tromp l’oeil work on the swag behind the blue curtain.
And despite the fantastic scenic painting, the lighting was still on the primitive side. The First Electric with those ubiquitous PCs.
Not much space over the stage, but those rafters are incredible.
In the entrance, a preserved antique “No Smoking” sign.
It was then time for lunch. Thank you, Candace!
That evening featured a performance in Novafeltria of La Cambiale di Matrimonio.
Since we were fast approaching the end of the program, the next morning was spent beginning to clean the shop. There were plenty of left over pieces from years past that we were rather astounded by. Here’s what passed for marble. . .
And we were all agreed that this was one of the most hideous pieces of stage furniture any of us had run across. Apparently this was put on stage for a previous production of Rigoletto.
Much of that morning was also spent on our knees scrubbing the paint off the shop floor, but by the end of our efforts, the shop was spit spot. The executive of the school, Ubaldo, said it was the cleanest he’d ever seen it.
This was the room used as the paint shop. It also got thoroughly scrubbed. Always leave a space in better shape than you find it.
The theatre in Pennabilli sent its own truck that morning; we were surprised to learn that there were no sides. We also had to leave the scenery at the theatre overnight and return in the morning to strike. Fortunatley, Pennabilli was only about a half hour away from Novafeltria.
The truck, unloaded, in the narrow lane next to the theatre. That rusticated archway to the left in the stage door. Despite the interesting truck issue, this was one of the most pleasant load-ins we experienced.
The front of the Teatro Vittoria. The theatre itself is a couple hundred years old, but was thoroughly renovated about fifteen years ago. Some of the residences abutting the theatre were given to the theatre to increase the backstage and provide more dressing room space.
The interior, from the booth, as we set up for Suor Angelica and La Cambiale di Matrimonio.
The view from the stage.
The dimmers and patch panel.
And the board du jour. . .
. . . which was a far cry better than the old resistance dimmer they had on display in the lobby.
After setting up, the house man, Franco, took us on a biref tour, stopping at the overlook atop the mountain. from the left, it’s Franco, Renee (set designer/TD), Brandon (SM), Anna (SM for Figaro), Milly (painter), and Maura (props).
The view from the peak down into the town.
The town is also the adopted home of the artist Tonino Guerro. One of his installations is “The Garden of Forgotten Fruit,’ a small orchard planted with antique varieties of fruit trees.
Another Guerro piece near the theatre.
Pennabilli is also a center of antiques; here’s a very cool chair way beyond my budget.
Pennabilli’s hookup du jour.
Suor Angelica in performance.
The final moments of Suor.
The next day, after returning to Pennabilli to collect the scenery, we performed Le Nozze di Figaro in our home space in Novafeltria. Here is the set, getting set up.
And lighting intern Sean Houston fiddling with the preset. As noted earlier, curtain times were rather malleable, so audience drifted in early, drifted in late, and when enough people seemed to be present, the show started. . .
The next day was our day off, and while there was a group trip to Venice (leaving at an ungodly hour in the morning), much of the tech staff decided to forgo the five hour bus ride and enjoy the area around Novafeltria. Our production assistant Antonio suggested a day trip to Montebello, where his girlfriend had been a tourguide for many years. It was also the home of Azuretta, the blue ghost, and a cache of medieval furniture that had been discovered in an abandoned cellar. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to photograph the interior.
The views, though, were spectacular. Here’s Renee and Antonio at one of the overlooks.
The view in the opposite direction, across the valley. That’s San Marino, covering that mountain in the distance.
And the view looking back toward Novafeltria. The lone knob to the right, in the distance, in Maioletta, a former hill town overlooking Novafeltria.
On this day, the GPS directed us to a strange corner of Cesena. It turned out that we were performing in the central plaza of this bank building.
A fellow came out and told us we couldn’t park on the plaza itself, instead telling us to park in a vacant grassy area next to the building. This meant lugging all the scenery up these stairs. The fellow then vanished, until after several frantic phone calls, he emerged an hour or so later with an interpreter to show us the dressing areas. . .
A view of the stage from behind, as we set up.
And the stage, finished.
One of the challenges of Italy is the fact that everything shuts down in the middle of the day for the siesta, including many restaurants. We had to wander a fair distance, accidentally finding ourselves here (which a few days later we learned was pretty close to the city center), to find the first open pizzeria. Since the performers didn’t arrive until about five, they had no problem finding places to eat.
On the other hand, gelato seems constantly available, and the shop across from the pizzeria had some of the best gelato of the trip. The Figaro flavor was particularly good.
The audience arrives, and here is lighting intern Sean Houston at the board.
Suor Angelica in performance in Cesena.
And La Cambiale di Matrimonio in performance.
The next day we returned to the Castel Sismondo in Rimini to perform Lucia di Lammermoor. It was rainy as we set out; Renee (the set designer), myself, and Claudio, our driver, left late. The crew was to follow. A picture from along the way — that’s San Leo foggy in the distance on the right.
Here’s costume designer Stephanie Henderson helping me set up the music stands for the orchestra. Setting up the pit became my special project night after night after night.
Stage manager Alex checks out the stage from the house.
On dinner break, passing through the piazza.
The Plaza of the Three Martyrs, in Rimini. This is the site of the intersection of two ancient Roman roads.
The curious Renaissance Malatesta church.
The arch of Tiberius.
Director Francois Loup arrives at the Castel.
The audience arrives.
The hookup du jour.
And finally, Lucia in performance.
Thoughout the tech rehearsals, work on scenery continued. Here are the walls from Figaro, laid out in the shop as Renee (the scenic designer and TD) painted detail. That’s scenic/lighting intern Sean Houston in the back, there.
The director of Lucia (Francois Loup) had asked for a portrait to hang in one of the scenes. I jumped in and banged it out. Here it is in progress. . .
. . . and the next day, done.
More of the Figaro walls go up.
Here we are, loading the truck for one of the first tour dates — San Marino, which was about half an hour away.
Interior of the theatre in San Marino, which, sadly enough, we did not perform in; though we used the dressing areas. Wonderful space, and if you note, contained the only ERS units we saw the whole trip.
The San Marino theatre from the stage. We played in the Piazza Sant’ Agata, directly in front of the theatre.
Here is the set, mostly up. The fellow to the right is Roberto, one of the team of local lighting technicians who made our lives much, much easier on many of the tour dates. He was also a singer.
A view of the stage from above.
The board du jour. Since most of the outside venues used the same lighting company, this was the board for most outdoor dates.
On the dinner break, Renee, Maura (our props master), and myself climbed a bit higher. This was the view from our pizzeria table.
. . . and then a little higher at the cafe near the top. That’s Rimini and the Adriatic.
Candace Evans, director of Figaro, relaxes as we wait for the audience to arrive.
The mad scene. The president of San Marino and his wife were seated directly behind the maestro. I would have to say this was probably the most magical evening of the trip.
The next day, we took Lucia to Pesaro, a beach resort town south of Rimini. The stage was in a castle. Which had a moat. An empty moat, but a moat nonetheless.
Being a castle, they were short on amenities. Here is the backstage toilet. The only backstage toilet. There were two portajohns for the audience out front.
On the dinner break, we took a walk — here’s the telecommunication building on the main piazza.
This fantastic Art Nouveau house was near the beach. Note the lobster brackets holding up the eaves.
And the tech staff all managed to accidentally convene at a cafe on the beach for dinner.
Back at the castle for focus. There were six 10″ (or so) PCs on the FOH truss, and 10 PAR 64s on the castle wall. All were too large for my cuts of color, and the staff had no frames. We did Lucia in white light that night.
The board du jour, a sister to the board in Novefeltria. The technicians were very reluctant to redo the soft patch so I could run it reasonably as a two scene preset — they wanted me to run it via submasters. I convinced them, eventually. It was very lucky we brought a rug we didn’t need, as the fire marshal brigade in attendance wouldn’t have allowed the board’s cords to be run to a position where the stage was visible from the board without something to cover them.
The hookup du jour.
The audience filters in as staging rehearsal takes place. We discovered that curtain times were very, very malleable.
We may not have had color on stage, but there were several kick-ass LED wall washers that were controlled through the board, so at least I got to change the color of the courtyard as the show progressed.
In the third week we begin teching the operas; this is a from a run of Figaro. These were less techs than run throughs with orchestra and very little time to change over between. There were also concerts scheduled in the space in the evenings. This was the first time performers ran through the shows with scenery, costumes, lights, or full orchestra, not to mention that with the compressed schedule scenery had yet to be completed (scenic design by Renee Suprenant).
Here is the crew putting up the walls for Lucia’s tech rehearsal.
A blurry photo of the final scene of Lucia, in tech.
The final moments of Suor Angelica’s tech.
La Cambiale di Matrimonio’s tech.
Since we were working with twelve dimmers and did not know what types of boards were to be expected in other venues, the old fashioned two scene preset cue sheet was the best way to handle notation. Even this turned out to be rather hopeful, as once we went on tour, equipment and positions varied widely, and with darkness not coming until curtain, cueing tended to be improvised live each night.
Our first tour date was Suor and Cambiale in a cloister in Rimini. The technicians were extremely helpful, even cobbling together two extra sets of stairs to the platform for us. In the cinema next to the piazza which served as dressing rooms, there were glassed portions of the floor where you could look down to the medieval crypts and the old Roman road.
A few of the PCs. These units were the type we found everywhere — no Fresnels, no ERSs. These units didn’t have working clamps and were gently wedged into the truss.
Renee watches set up as the local electricians nestle the PCs in the truss.
Here we are waiting for the audience to arrive and speaking with our new friend Nicola, who then walked us down to the Tiberius bridge. The lightboard was the exact same model as what we had in Novefeltria, though we had fewer dimmers. . .
The Bridge of Tiberius, the 2000 year old bridge a short walk from the cloister. That’s the old section of Rimini, across the river.
The string quartet warms up.
The performance of Suor Angelica. A much smaller stage than in Novafeltria, so it’s a little cramped. Since it was also the evening of Rimini’s pink festival, there were LED wash units lighting the apartment building behind the stage. The technicians were kind enough to let me pick the color for the performance.
And finally, La Cambiale in performance.