UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Yesterday saw work on the final two portal flats for the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” After this, of course, I will have to paint the groundrow. I thought I might be interesting to snap a photo of one of the flats at each step of the process.

First, here’s the palette of colors (I’ve just finishing stirring them at the start of the work session):

The other week, I based in shades of tan — lighter near the horizon line, and darker in the foreground — to help give a unified tonality to the whole piece, and to help create a sense of distance.

While it may or may not make sense from a painterly/fine art standpoint, it made sense for this project to base in the tree masses as the next step. The paint I’m using is pretty dilute scenic paint, so the approach is more watercolory than oil paintery; it’s really hard to lighten something back up once you’ve got paint down.

After the trees (mind you, you’ve got two flats going, so while one dries I work on the other. Back and forth, back and forth. . . ), I added the layers of ground. You can see the paint elevation on my handy little stand there. It’s covered in Saran Wrap to prevent splashed of paint from getting onto the original. This flat is the one on the far right of the elevation — it’s drawn in 1/2″ equals 1 foot scale.

Then I go back and start adding light and shade to my sylized tree and bush masses.

Now we’re heading into textures and detail. The plow lines and fence posts are also added.

Some more detail in the house and fence posts, some stylized stems and trunks, and some more lines of color to help create the plowed and planted fields. Those yellow dots on the bushes will become the centers of flowers.

Now is a good time to lay in the three sky colors, blending from darkest at the top to lightest at the bottom.

Barbed wire and the windmill. Also some flowers on the darker set of bushes.

This afternoon, clouds and done.

Yesterday afternoon production activities for the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.”

First, I finished up the fifth and sixth portal flats. . .

. . . as I was applying the final clouds and shading, students were readying them for hanging. Here’s Intro student James stapling up some of the flappy excess muslin around the edges. . .

. . . and TA Logan working with some Intro students on attaching the hanging irons.

In the Barnett, electrics work was wrapping up. The hang is done, and we’re about to move onto focus (in fact, we focused some units as part of that morning’s Intro to Tech class). Here’s TA Quinn and TA Joe at the tech table talking about some notes.

We also got the frames for the house (at least, the lower section) and shed up, so now the actors have doorways!

More updates from the UW-Whitewater theatre department as we continue production work on the upcoming opera, “The Tender Land.”

Steve, our TD, needed to leave early on Friday, so after he got everything rolling, he left TA Allison in charge of shop activities. Here is Allison working with Intro student Shelby on installing the painted planks of the shed porch.

You can see the 1st Electric behind them, and TA Quinn worked with other students on circuiting. Here’s Intro student Zach with Quinn working on the 2A Electric.

Here’s another group of students (I think that’s Bruce there in the black shirt, center) working upstage on the 2B and 3rd Electrics.

Over in the shop, painting continued. Here is Intro student James painting the planks and fascia for the house porch, with another student in back there priming things like the benches.

And I continued work on the fifth and sixth portal flats. At the end of the day, this one was almost done (except for clouds and barbed wire). . .

. . . and this one was getting close (clouds, house, windmill. . . ).

Yesterday’s progress on the upcoming UW Whitewater’s production of Aaron Copland’s opera “The Tender Land.” We’ve started hanging lights this week, and here we see TD and lighting designer Steve Chene explaining the applicable portions of the plot to a group of Introduction to Theatre students:

And here they are, a bit later, deep in the circuiting of the second electric:

Another major task for the day was to open the orchestra pit, partly to get the music director and conductor (Prof. Bob Gehrenbeck) into his performance location so the actors can get used to looking for him there, but also because the actors now need to get used to the fact that there is indeed this large hole downstage. Because the stage is never as large as it seems on paper, we’ve gone ahead and left in the two end plugs (in the points); my first task of the day was to paint those to match the rest of the floor.

After which, I went back to the second set of portal flats. Here’s one, complete and ready to go up. .

. . . and the other, just waiting on its clouds.

And up the flats go, while electrics work continues.

Work continues on the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” Here’s an update on yesterday’s activities.

In the scene shop, students build benches. . .

. . . paint the floorboards of the shed’s porch (there’s a section of the primed groundrow over to the left, there). . .

. . . build a period looking screen door. . .

. . . and install the downstage two portal flats.

Here are the two flats from the back of the house:

Meanwhile, my project is moving onto the next two portal flats:

And when I return to my office, there are some lovely sunset-y clouds going on outside my window.

In the graphics seminar this year, the first sizeable project is to draft a groundplan for “True West.” Since we’re still focusing on the mechanics of drafting (we’ll do some designing in the last third of the semester) they need things to draft. To that end, yesterday morning was spent working up a quick design for “True West” that’s detailed enough they can figure it out, but includes enough places where they’ll have to make some decisions as they draft.

. . . and the second one, also nearing completion.

This afternoon I will add the clouds and then these two flats can go up.

Work continues on the upcoming UW Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” Here we have Technical Director Steve Chene explaining to Shelby and TA Quinn how to lay out the upper framing of the house. . .

. . . and then a little while later when they are joined by Eric and start working through the angle.

In the shop, two of the Intro students are cutting out and assembling the groundrow. . .

. . . while my afternoon project entails painting the downstage most two portal flats. Here they are earlier as I rough in the base colors. . .

. . . and then a bit later as I begin to work in detail.

This afternoon we had production meetings for both “The Furies” and “The Tender Land,” which meant I was there rather than painting in the shop. Still, they were productive meetings, and particularly for “The Furies,” lots of good stuff was figured out.

The other week I watched an episode of “NOVA” on PBS about the search for the Higgs Boson, and near the end of the program a physicist walked up into this arrangement of metal plates suspended on rods that he proceeded to tap to create vibrations. It was a very interesting look, and one that I passed by our director (Angela Iannone) — luckily, she’d also seen the program and knew exactly what I was talking about.

So, when we’re in Delphi, there will be jagged shards of metal suspended on thin ropes. When we go to Athens, we will pull up strips of white China silk to create “columns.” In short, civilization replacing barbarism.

The other thing to be decided was whether to pursue the semi-circular stage configuration I’d first proposed, or to push things to the side and go with a more angular arrangement. Angela liked the more angular arrangement. In my sketchbook (pictured above) the left side features the old semi-circular look and the right side features the newer more angled version.

Yesterday’s happenings around the upcoming UW-Whitewater’s production of “The Tender Land.”

My project for the afternoon was to begin the transfer of the images from the paint elevations to the actual flats, blowing them up from 1/2″ scale to, well, real scale.

Stage left. . .

. . . and stage right.

In the shop, we’ve got TD Steve Chene working with TA Quinn on the shed door. . .

. . . Intro student Lilliana picking up freshly primed porch planks . . .

. . . TA Logan showing Intro student Shelby which staples she should load into the pneumatic stapler. . .

. . . and then Logan and Shelby a bit later, figuring out the facing for the upstage walk way.

That evening, rehearsal featured a stumble-through of the blocked sections of the play, primarily so the lighting designer (who is also Steve, our TD) could get a better sense of flow. I’ll be using his plot later this week for the lighting portion of the Intro to Tech class. Here’s Jim Butchart, the director, doing some directing from the back of the house.

We had just gotten to the start of the second act, and pretty much the entire cast is on stage for the party and dinner scene.

Finally, our stage management team for this production. Alison, Colton, and Emily.

Some shop photos as we continue the build on the UW Whitewater’s upcoming production of Copland’s opera “The Tender Land.”

Here we have Kim and Brian lifting a flat frame off saw horses in order to move it down to the next step in the process, which is covering it with muslin. Since the flats are eighteen (or thereabouts) feet tall, we’ve taken stock flats and scabbed them together to get to the requisite height.

And here is that next step — Braden and Teresa stapling muslin onto a frame.

Meanwhile, in the Barnett, Brandon and Josiah lay out the planking of the house’s porch. After they lay it out, they’ll pop it all off so it can be painted in the shop, after which it will be reinstalled.

Down in the costume shop, TA Leanne demonstrates something involving ironing and spray starch to Intro to Tech student Mason. . .

. . . while Jennifer and Bridget join shop supervisor and costume designer Tracey Lyons doing some stitching and some seam ripping..

It’s not all construction and building, though, as Liliana and Brianne work on homework (presumably) in the department green room.

Finally, Sarah Altermatt, who handles publicity and publications for the department, asked to use some of the groundrow imagery for the production poster. Here it is, hanging on director Jim Butchart’s office door. The image withstood enlargement quite nicely.