UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

Construction on the UW-Whitewater’s production of “Clybourne Park” continues.

Here we have Liliana cutting boards for flats, while Josiah base paints what will become baseboard and trim. They are both students in the Intro to Theatre course.

Here are more of the Intro students, assembling flats. . .

. . . and priming those flats.

I’m not sure what Therese and Josiah (yes, we have two Josiahs right now!) are working on, but here they are, working on it, as TA Joe responds to a question from off-camera.

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My projects for the afternoon included a base coat for the hardwood floor downstage, painted directly on the stage floor. . .

. . . and graining the planks that will be laid on the upstage platforming.

Construction continues on the upcoming UW-Whitewater’s production of “Clybourne Park.” In the shop, TA Quinn assigns some of his fellow students their tasks.

While in the Barnett, TA Thad considers his work on the escape stairs.

Down in the costume shop, Amber works on the doll. . .

. . . while costume designer and costume shop supervisor Tracey Lyons advises Leann (hidden behind the dressmaker’s form) on how to build a pregnancy pad for use in rehearsals.

Amber also built a mini-Nate puppet, which is now hanging proudly in the shop.

This is a little on the old news side, but down in the theatre corridor, the bulletin boards are filling up with work from the Introduction to Theatrical Design course. On one side, we see the students’ first attempt at a model, their quick and dirty presentations of the short play “Return of the Living.”

On the other side, we see their boards for their costume design final projects. They worked on either “Jeffrey” or “Rashomon.” Strangely enough, no one picked Shaw’s “Getting Married.”

Here are some students hard at work in the design room. It looks like Kat’s doing something for either Intro to Design or Make

Finally, the groundplan for “The Tender Land” nears completion on my drafting table.

Construction continues on the UW-Whitewater production of “Clybourne Park.” (set design by guest Keith Pitts)

Here Logan and Britney work on the escape stairs for the upper hallway.

And here is a header piece, framed out in the shop.

Now that “Nate the Dragon” is out on the road, the building of “Clybourne Park” (scenic design by guest designer Keith Pitts) gets rolling in earnest. Here is TD Steve Chene with students working on the staircase and upper level.

And now that “Nate” is done and someone else is designing “Clybourne Park” (though I will be painting it), we’ve also started working on the February opera, Copland’s “The Tender Land.” Here are my preliminary thoughts, as presented and marked up from today’s production meeting.

Some photos from the final dress rehearsal of the UW-Whitewater’s touring children’s show, “Nate the Dragon.” The set design was by student Thad Kraus, lighting design by student Joe Berman, props artisan was Alison Lozar, costume design by faculty member Tracey Lyons.

Preset. Since this was a new play by a local author, this rehearsal was taped, and there are cameras everywhere. . .

The opening. Eva the Beaver notices the audience.

Joey the Duck hatches, but can’t get out of his shell.

Nate the Dragon flies to Dragon Island but is intercepted by one of the emperor’s wasps.

The Dragon Isle side of the rotating back flats for “Nate the Dragon.” Originally, the central rock was supposed to be off on the left — when we laid this side out, we laid it out with the flats upright on stage, thinking that it would easier. None of us realized that when you rotate the flats, the images flip, so while the Treegrass Isle side was fine, the Dragon Isle side no longer matched up. Thad, the student set designer, panicked for a moment, and (since I couldn’t be at tech that evening) then set to work adjusting the image to work (this is his first academic set design). He did a fine job of sorting it out on his own.

Tonight was first dress rehearsal, and here’s the stage under worklights, set for the top. This is a traveling show, so we have a single performance on campus and then it gets loaded into a panel truck with all the costuming and driven around to area schools. Since we never know what the spaces will look like until we get there, the set has to be flexible enough to accommodate libraries and gymnasiums, as well as actual stages.

This is also the first show with puppets we have done. The puppet bodies were purchased, but faculty member Tracey Lyons designed the costumes for them.

A photo from dress rehearsal. Student Joe Berman is the lighting designer.

And Dragon Isle, during dress rehearsal.

Meanwhile, work begins on the next show, “Clybourne Park.” Here’s Intro student Tanner stapled scabs onto legs for the platforming. That show is being designed by guest designer Keith Pitts.

As focus continues in the Barnett (that’s student lighting designer Joe Berman over there to the left), working on scenery continues in the shop. Here’s student scenic designer Thad Kraus stopping for an overview of the Treegrass island flat.

As Intro student Matthew installs casters on the bottom of the flats.

And then, a bit later, Thad experiments with the shading of the dragon eggs on the wing masking flats.

Painting continues on “Nate the Dragon.” Here are two photos of student scenic designer Thad Kraus painting in the sky:

And this is where we left off at the end of shop today. There is still some work to be done on the mountains, and I’ve sent Thad back to do more research on water, since the image he adapted this piece from had some rather odd water.

Meanwhile, props artisan Allison Lozar works on dragon eggs.

TA Quinn works with two students on attaching jacks to the back of the bushes.

In the Barnett Theatre, student lighting designer Joe Berman focusses, using stand-in flats for scenery.

And finally, Steve, our TD, shows students how to mix a five gallon bucket of paint.

“Come Back” has been struck and next week we head into tech for our children’s production, “Nate the Dragon.” The scenic design is by student Thad Kraus, who is new to scenic design.

Here’s Thad considering a color chart in order to figure out how he will mix colors to match his image.

At the start of Wednesday’s shop session, this flat was at this point. . .

By the end of the day, we were here. It may not look like much change from a distance, but a lot was done.

At the same time, the masking/framing flats were getting base colors.

I haven’t posted progress photos lately, as I’ve been focusing on making progress on the set for the UW-Whitewater’s production of “Come Back.” We had our final dress rehearsal last night, so here are a few photos to take us through the past several days.

Here’s the top of the ramp on the scene shop floor. I’ve just finished painting it. Meanwhile, in the background, TD Steve Chene talks to students about the rolling desk unit they’re working on.

In the Barnett theatre, the large flats are laid out for painting. Here a couple of the Intro to Theatre students paint the cerulean flats while I start working on clouds.

Clouds. And More clouds.

The installation of the tree flats commences. The wheelchair off to the side is a piece from the show, and is on stage to ensure that there’s enough space between the flats to get it on and off. You can also see work on the ramp happening.

More progress on the tree flats. I think that’s Allison back there holding it in place while it’s tacked into place.

The finished set, under worklights.

Preset. The lighting was designed by student Jayson Winslow.

Scene from final dress rehearsal. Sky (played by Colton Larson) sits in his friend’s Erin’s wheelchair and mourns his death.