Approaching Opening

Some (okay, most) shows seem to enter some Twilight Zone time loop as Opening gets closer: you keep painting, dressing, even building, yet the set never seems to get closer to finished.  This is an illusion, but a common and painful one.  The first audience is Thursday - today is Tuesday.

The Boeing Boeing set is finally, finally about finished building and painting.  Mind you, a week of Snowpocalypse didn't speed things any, but the end is, I think, now approaching.  Tomorrow needs to be Set Dressing Day.  (Whether walls are dry or not.)

As an experienced designer, you find yourself getting more stream-lined and efficient as the deadline nears so that, for instance, painting a tabletop as faux travertine (that streaky bacon-fat looking beige marble), which a few years ago would have taken me half a day of worry and work, took exactly the 20 minutes I had left for it.  Redesign the bench (again) ten minutes.  By Thursday morning I could probably knit an entirely new set in three.

Recently found an old British World War II slogan that ought to be a theater motto:

image borrowed from ribbonandrope blog