Successful Smearing

Years ago a good set designer friend -  who was an excellent scenic painter with years of NYC experience - explained to me that there were "scenic painters" and there were "smearers."

Just imagine the New Yorkish tone of that "smearer"...  Just as in "a bagel and smear."

Scenic painters (as I'd been discovering for myself) are amazingly talented painters who use their well-trained and experience-honed super-talents in the Cause of Theater, or rather, Theatre.  "Smearers," on the other hand, are poorly trained saps who can, just barely, wipe a little color on a set... maybe usefully.

I, sadly, am a smearer.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons, via a deli review

There's no way I'm ever going to get the classical theater scenic painting training or get enough time with a brush to re-invent that wheel by myself and I doubt I have the innate drawing talent required to be a true scenic painter anyway, but I can, when pushed to it, wipe a little color on a set in a useful way.  (This admission still leaves me more skill than one memorable painter / helper who had never held a paintbrush before.  Sad, but true.  She just could NOT keep the brown paint only on Sleepy's plywood headboard and the white paint only on Sleepy's plywood mattress.  Not even painter's tape helped.)

Anyway, yesterday was largely spent doing just that, getting some TLC onto part of the Thinner Than Water set at Kitchen Dog so that a few publicity photos can be taken.

So, okay, not great scenic painting as such, but useful?

I guess my painting must be effective enough: one set I painted, for Kitchen Dog's Detroit, just won a DFW Critics' Forum Award.

Wahoo!  Thanks to director Tim Johnson for the live-grass idea (that I'm sure is what caught the critics' attention) and to all the many, tired, muddy Kitchen Dogs who helped build and landscape that set, with specially big "Thanks!" to Abby and Mike upon whom I always depend.

Detroit was a killer set to build, mostly because of script requirements for breakables.  (Playwrights take note: breakables = hard to do!)  Well, and the required flames.

Detroit, at Kitchen Dog Theater, That's Tina drinking from a straw.  

And that's real grass... which needed painting eventually, but not, luckily, by me.

Nice to have hard work recognized.

Which makes the awards recognizing Tim Johnson's direction and Tina Parker's acting in that same show even cooler!

Congratulations to all the award winners!  With shout-outs to particular friends n' colleagues and shows I was involved in like the whole Kitchen Dog Barbecue Apocalypse team (I didn't design this one) and to B.J. Cleveland and his Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike actors (go team! I did design this one).  Also to Susan Sargeant's almost one-woman-theater-team; to Terry Martin (whose award shelf is crowded by now); Drew Wall; Liz Mikel; and the amazing Jeff Swearingen, whose play Stiff won a best-new-work award and whose young actors continue to rake in awards and good notices.

Stiff I also got to set-design, collapsing gazebo and all.  Design and smear.  (And did I smear!  It was supposed to look "bad."  A real break you'd think for a smearer!  But, honestly, this requirement was both lucky and terrifying because it's tricky to look bad-on-purpose instead of bad-because-incompetent...)

Earlier posts on Vanya and Sonia and Vanya and Spike HERE.  (I'll add more as I find 'em.)  More on the DFW Critics' Awards HERE.