Some of this morning’s “The Tender Land’ tasks. Working up the paint elevations for the stage left portal flats.
And sealing the upstage walkway. I painted this yesterday afternoon, and after Thad’s scenic painting independent study work session this morning, I had enough time to get some acrylic on this so it will be dry in time for the afternoon’s shop hours.
The scene shop is not the only place activity is ramping up for the upcoming UW-Whitewater production of “The Tender Land.” Here’s Bridget and Josiah working on costumes in the costume shop, under the supervision of costume designer and shop supervisor Tracey Lyons. Looks like they’ve laid out a pattern and are cutting things out.
We also had a production meeting today, and here’s music director Bob Gehrenbeck discussing music issues while student stage manager Alison takes notes.
There will be a fair amount of pictorial paint work on this show. Our TD has told he will build the portal flats this coming week so I can attack those first. That means working out the paint elevations, of course, so here’s the first half, for stage right. Again, borrowing from great American artists like Grant Wood, Alexandre Hogue, and Thomas Hart Benton.
The drafting for the upcoming UW Whitewater production of Copland’s “The Tender Land” is done, so I’m turning my attention to painting. Here is the ground row, in progress.
I was already pulling a lot from American artists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, but a colleague from the art department dropped by and told me I should also look up the work of Alexander Hogue. His feminization of landscape is the most overt of these three artists, and boy, am I glad Prof. Wilk made me aware of his work!
Classes begin next week, and amid syllabi and lesson plans, it’s time to get back to the drafting table and crank out the last few plates for UW-Whitewater production of Copland’s “The Tender Land.”
Here’s yesterday’s progress on the elevation:
And today’s work on the section:
I really need to clean my triangles. . .
I drove up to Minneapolis yesterday to attend a staged reading of my new play “Ghostbears!” at the Workhouse Theatre. It was chosen for one of their once a month new play readings — their Greenhouse Public Reading Series. Small space in north Minneapolis, but they were all lovely to work with and it being the first time I’ve heard other people reading the play out loud, I gained some good and valuable information on the piece.
Here’s a photo of director Richard Jackson (to the right) giving the actors their seating assignments before things get rolling.
This past week, we went to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region Three’s conference in Milwaukee. Five of our students brought costume projects — and of course we had a group of actors participating in the Irene Ryan auditions. We had one student get to the Irene Ryan semi-finals, and one student make it to the costume design semi-finals. While having students move forward in the competition is always nice, it was particularly exciting for tech and design that four of the costume designers were not only first time presenters at the conference, but presenting what for them was pretty much their first costume designs.
Here are Kiley (behind) and Bridget (right) setting up their boards. Bridget is the one who made it to the semi-finals, with her design for Shakespeare’s “Pericles.”
Kiley brought a design for “Rashomon.”
Stephanie pins up her work for O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”
Liliana hangs her design for “Sweeney Todd.”
The one realized design we brought was Claire Kinder’s work on the department production of “Come Back,” earlier this semester. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a photo of her boards. Also to be acknowledged is the work of our costume designer/costume shop supervisor Tracey Lyons, who mentored all of these projects.
The students in the Introduction to Theatrical Design presented their final projects (lighting design) this morning. Lots of good work. Most of them found themselves surprised they actually rather were getting into lighting. One of the senior acting students even said that he wanted to do more lighting!
Since we only have five weeks on lighting in the course, we focus on the start of the design process — from script analysis up to magic sheets and purpose lists.
(yes, she knows she misspelled “Rashomon.” And yes, she was suitably embarrassed. . . )
And despite it being finals week, work continues on the Spring productions. Here’s a thumbnail of “The Furies,” with Athena. . .
. . . and where we’re leaving off on construction for “The Tender Land” as we head off to break. The floor is painted, the platforms are in place.
One of the projects I assign my Introduction to Theatre course is a costume design. We’ve used “A Raisin in the Sun” as a text for a lot of the course discussions — script analysis, scenic design, etc — but now the students get to connect the dots. They have to analyze the character, do research, and then put it all together in a rendering. For most of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever done something like this, and for many, the first time in a long time they’ve even been asked to draw. Every year, they surprise themselves and turn out some nice work. Here’s a smattering of the projects, laying on my office floor as I grade them.
Off to the right, there, you can see my sketchbook with a few doodles for our Spring production of “The Furies.’ We’ve got our first production meeting this morning.
“Clybourne Park” has been struck, and since no rehearsals are happening in the Barnett these last weeks of classes, I can go ahead and get the floor painted before platforms start moving in. Here is Tuesday afternoon’s progress. The downstage area is not included in the treatment because the pit cover will be removed (you can still see some Clybourne flooring there).
Of course, students being students, someone already decided to work on a scene last night, dragged chairs into the middle of the floor and left large black scuff marks. A senior, who should have known better. Gr.