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.
First, the elevation for the second act, Zeze’s artistic garret, on the drafting table the other day.
Here’re students Shakiva and Nick applying wheat paste to the luaun so the pieces can be covered in muslin.
And students Nick and Mike with TD Steve Chene putting together one of the door walls for Act Two.
And finally, one of my projects, rebuilding and recovering this footstool. There were about five layers of previous upholstery attempts, as well as a rotted out bottom. It almost looks comfortable now. On to the chaise!
Almost forgot — “Jack and the Magic Beans” opened, went on tour, and closed. Here are a few pictures from the final dress rehearsal. I did the scenic design, costume design is by my colleague Tracey Lyons, and the lighting design is by student Logan Bydalek. We only perform this once on campus under stage lights before the performers take it around to area schools with a wide variety of surprising performance spaces.
Jack and his sister in their farm yard.
Jack in town, about to sell Miss Priss to the Bean Seller.
The beanstalk happens!
In the Giant’s kitchen, the troll prevents Jack from fighting the Giant.
This is a photo of the drafting table last week as I was finishing up the elevation of acts one and three. Construction has already begun; it’s a good thing that our TD (Steve Chene) and I have established a pretty good system of working together. I can get him partial drawings or sketchup models if time is crunched, and with some talking through things he has enough information to get tech drawings generated. Very important when you’ve got students in the shop waiting for things to do — and deadlines to meet. . . and “Into the Woods” to get designed. . .
That being said, here’s Steve with some of the students bolting together the central pivoting platform. Those large shapes behind them are pieces of Zeze’s garret.
TA Thad measures stuff.
TA Keri and Intro student Samantha working on another piece of Zeze’s garret.
And finally, since the Dupont’s parlor will feature a gradated paint treatment, here is my first experimental stab at working out the colors and the gradation.
Last night was first dress, so a couple of photos from the evening:
The set up for the first scene, the yard of Jack’s House, under worklights. Today we’ll be taking the floor back to black. There’s still detail to finish on the two screens, and this afternoon’s project will be to complete the beanstalk.
This is the set up for Act Two, the Giant’s Kitchen. That’s Jack hiding behind the stove.
We have a single performance of the play on campus (this Saturday). After that, it will spend its life on the road, visiting various local schools with their variety of performance spaces.
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.
As we move into first tech tonight, lots of things getting finished, or close to finished, or close to close to getting finished. . .
. . . the beanstalk is encased in muslin so we can paint all that plastic without having the paint flake off, and so all the tubing has a chance of staying attached both when Jack climbs it and all the transport is must endure.
Here’s Eric painting leaf after leaf after leaf.
Close to done with one folding screen. . .
. . . as Anna paints birds and leaves on the other.
With tech beginning tomorrow, we’re painting up a storm on “Jack and the Magic Beans.” Everything’s been cut out since last week and has been in use in rehearsals, so it’s really about making sure we don’t have acres of white-primed scenery that light will bounce off and blind us during tech. Though of course, the beanstalk itself is a bit more complicated than that. . .
Here’s TA Keri (at the top of the stalk) working with a crew of Intro students on wrapping the sonotube with ethafoam tendrils and vines. Tomorrow we’ll cheese cloth the shebang to provide stability and a decent paint surface. That’s Thad over there on the bandsaw, cutting out templates of birds, trees, and pigs for use on the big folding screens.
Here’s Kyle and Joe working on the town groundrow.
. . . and from another angle.
I started laying out the patterns on one of the large portal screens. There are those birds templates that Thad was cutting out on the bandsaw.
And while it might seem like Kyle and Joe were everywhere in shop today, they just happened to finish with the town at a time I needed to start filling in shapes on the screens.
Finally, some of the mostly finished pieces sitting on stage after the afternoon’s dry tech session. I am rather happy with how the fence turned out.
Painting on Jack begins in earnest today!
Here are Intro students Devon and Molly working on the landscape groundrow. Yes, it IS just like a giant paint by number set!
TA Keri works with student on standing up one of the folding screens that will form the downstage portal.
And here is Keri working on laying out the Giant’s clock.
Finally, another Intro student, Bruce, knocks down the edges of the Giant’s table preparatory to painting.
Now that “Dracula” has been struck and the Hicklin restored to classroom set-up, we head into the construction of “Jack and the Magic Beans.” Most of the pieces have been cut out and primed already, so now we begin laying out patterns and some basic color fill-in.
This is Intro student Jeffry laying out the internal lines for the town groundrow.
And student Megan painting the the supports of the sun. The other tripod past her is the support for the cloud.
Then finally, while the students are in the shop working on “Jack,” I head back to my office to finish working up the final groundplan of “Anything to Declare?”