UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

“Resort 76” had a successful run; two high school matinees as well as an extra weekend matinee brought us three more performances than our normal schedule does. It’s been struck, the scaffolding returned, and all the bits and pieces are waiting until we hear whether the production is to be invited to the January KCACTF Region 3 festival.

So now it’s time to turn to “Twelfth Night.” Senior Megan Grove is designing the scenery. Below are her groundplan and an elevation of the Sketchup model:

Megan has chosen to draft in AutoCAD, which means she’s been working with our TD, Ruth, on learning that program.

In the shop, platforms are getting legged up. Here’s Intro student Savannah working with KG:

And then Megan herself framing up a triangular platform:

I get to spend some time in my office working on “The Addams Family Musical.” We’ve discussed the option of having the orchestra on stage, but since there’s a lot of percussion (as well as 16-18 musicians) it looks like they’ll have to be in the pit; this means we lose the option of having a stairway into the trap room. Ah well. We also toyed with the idea of smart caster rotating wagons:

But Bruce Cohen, the director, decided he wasn’t too keen on that and wished to go back to platformed levels. In Intro to Design the other day, one of the students brought up periaktoi as a method to alter a stage environment. Today I thought, hey, periaktoi! We get some movement, we can shift from interior to exterior to park to graveyard with relative simplicity. . . so I worked up a version with platforming and periaktoi:

I ran it past Bruce and our choreographer, Piper, and they both said to run with it.

Onward!

With the swift move from one show to the next, I just noticed that I did not post any of my final dress photos of Theatre Gigante’s “The Beggar’s Opera,” (for which I designed lighting). It closes this Saturday evening.

Here are a couple highlights:

Macheath introduces himself:.

Explaining the concept of the ‘tranche’ to the cast members:

Mrs. Peachum sings:

Hedge fund managers carousing in the tavern:

Jenny Diver is not putting up with it:

“Resort 76” opened Monday night. Since we don’t usually open Monday night — rather, opening is normally the Tuesday morning student matinee — I thought I’d be able to go back and take more production photos Monday night. Sigh. At least we were indeed done Sunday night. . .

With the wrap around set (which one of my Intro to Theatre students said was quite effective in immersing the viewer in the environment — yay!) it’s difficult to get photos which include the complete vista.

So instead, here are three photos under work light that show the three directions of the space — south, west, and north.

You’d think that using scaffolding would make construction a bit easier, but it does not. No, it does not.

On to the next!

Second to last dress rehearsal of Shimon Wencelberg’s “Resort 76” last night. Here are a couple of photos from the evening. despite my fears earlier in the week, we’re heading into final dress with only a few set detail notes to finish; student LDs Abby and Nick have done a really solid job with lighting and also have an expected number of cuing notes to accomplish this afternoon.

Herr Krause listens to stories of America:

The resolution to be a father, after all and in spite of:

But the inevitable is how it ends:

Opening tomorrow morning. Production meeting for “Twelfth Night” this afternoon. Meetings about “The Addams Family” musical later this week!

We are in the midst of technical rehearsals for Shimon Wincelberg’s “Resort 76.” Here are a few photos from the evening of the first dress rehearsal.

First, a view from behind the tech table as we wait to begin, with the set under worklights:

The director, Bruce Cohen, wanted a very industrial look to the space, and wanted to use scaffold to create this look. One of my challenges was to not only figure out what this might look like, but then to determine what pieces of scaffold would be needed (as well as what style of scaffold would be best) and then put together an order for all the bits and pieces required. We’ve wrapped the the action around three sides of the theatre (kind of a reverse thrust) to surround the audience with the environment — Bruce is very interested in immersive theatre experiences.

Here’s a pic of the character Krause, standing on the ‘balcony;’

And then a view off toward house left. That’s our publicity/marketing director Audra Lange taking publicity shots down there:

Monday night will be final dress, with our Tuesday morning matinee being opening. Then it’s on to “Twelfth Night”. . . .

Tech week begins, and we’re a bit behind. Mind you, it is only the fourth week of classes. . .

The scaffolding is largely up; here’s a view toward the southwest corner of the theatre:

I’m painting what is built. Here are the two side flats for the factory door entrance, completed and waiting for the factory door to be finished:

Yesterday was dry tech, so here’s the production team at the tech table, writing light cues, working through sound, etcetera. We’ve got student co-LDs Abby and Nick, student SM Alex Carey, faculty sound designer (collaborating from the Music Dept) Jeff Herriot, and student sound board op KC. That’s director Bruce Cohen sitting to the rear, there.

This morning, I snuck down bright and early and got most of the floor painted so it’d be dry by the time shop starts up this afternoon. Now to prep for Intro to Theatre’s quick and dirty history session — we’re going to race from the end of the Romans toward the Elizabethans!

Major structural things are happening on the build of “Resort 76!” I got the tattered fabric stapled to battens, which then went up along three of the theatre’s walls. Now the scaffolding is getting put together. Here’s a view of the theatre from the booth:

That’s TD Ruth with students gathered at the table looking at the drawings. Here’s Ruth again, pointing in an instructional manner:

A pic of the west wall:

And last but not least, student KG has signed on to do some painting. Here she is priming the cistern for the toilet. She’s just finished painting the hallway door there on the sawhorses.

Because it’s not quite enough to be working on one show, I’m designing the lights for Theatre Gigante’s remount of their adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera. That means a week of driving back and forth to Milwaukee for tech week.

The performance will take place in the UW-Milwaukee’s studio space. It’s a rep plot and only 48 dimmers, so there’s not much you can do beyond change color and swap a few things out for specials. I have to say, though, that this is the first show I’ve worked on in this space that didn’t require us to spend the better part of a day putting the rep plot back together after hard student usage.

Here’s a pic of the cast getting ready for our first tech. It was pretty much a cue to cue since I was able to slam most of the cues into the board during rehearsal on Sunday.

As you can see, there’s not much set, as Gigante is presenting this in rather meta-mode — it all takes place in a rehearsal hall.

Here’s a pic of board operator and semi-SM Sam Butchart in the “booth” at the Expression.

It’s nice to work on a board that isn’t overkill and you don’t have to go through ten layers of commands just to record a cue. Ah, the olden days.

Finally, here’s the tech table.

The scaffolding is here! The scaffolding is here!

Because our loading dock is ground level and the Brand-Safway truck was not, we weren’t able to just wheel it all into the shop with some palette jacks. It took us about an hour and a quarter to offload it all into the Hicklin Theatre. Have to remember that if the production gets selected to travel to KCACTF in January. . .

Before the scaffolding can go up, lights need to get hung.

Here’s a pic of student SM Alex chatting with co-LDs Nick and Abby.

I spent time, as I often do, painting. Some of the window frames got primed yesterday. . .

. . . so I finished priming them today.

Since the walls behind the scaffolding will be hung with distressed panels of fabric, we’ve been hunting down old muslin, as well as ripping it off old stock flats. I’m spraying down the backs and will rip, tear, and then attach to battens. Here’s a batch drying on the floor in the Barnett.

It’s two and a half weeks into classes and construction is apparently now done. We just have to put everything back together now, which will take time. The shop is almost back in working order. . .

We’re supposed to get the new shelving for costume and props in about two months, and then we can start putting those spaces back together. Good times.

In the third week of classes! The scaffold for Resort 76 arrives today — or rather already arrived this morning before we were ready for it. They’re coming back when the shop is open and we have the students to help unload the truck (thanks to the folks at Brand-Safway for being so accommodating throughout this whole process!).

Student scenic designer Megan is busy working on the design for the upcoming Twelfth Night. We met this morning to discuss her progress. The director, Sara Griffin, happened to pass by, heard us chatting, and joined us, which meant that many many questions were answered on the spot.

This afternoon I have a meeting with student Resort 76 co-LDs Abby and Nick on finalizing the plot. Even though the hang is scheduled to begin today, they still need a bit of time to be students and engage the learning process. Two and a half weeks into the semester, remember? Still, there’s enough information that the student ME (Harry, on his first ME assignment) can begin pulling equipment and getting prepped.

Onward!