Close to the Bone

 Art and life sometimes come uncomfortably close.

Sitting through the Designer Run of Kitchen Dog Theater's new play, Dream Hou$e, was... 

was weird was what it was. 

The premise is that two sisters who recently lost their mother and inherited the long-time family home agree to let a reality TV show rennovate it for sale.

The IRL is that two designers who recently lost their mothers and have/had to deal with the family home watched and tried to seem all professional an' stuff.  (Basically, not weep all over the rest of the design team.)

Sometimes theater hits too close to the bone.

I have a visceral memory of watching another play called The Marriage of Betty & Boo, decades ago when I was very pregnant.  I have no remembrance of what happened in that play - except that every couple minutes (it seemed like) Betty would have another miscarraige and the actors would bounce a rubber baby doll off the stage.  That I remember. 

(The other couple, who had picked the play, apologized to the pregnant lady all the way home.)

And I know of at least one person who saw I play I designed, Natural Shocks, who told me later that it had shown her that she needed to get out of bad relationship.

It's not just safely sitting in a plush theater seat where this happens either...

On a trip to Europe once, when I happened to be in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, actually, on a free day with nothing planned... I got a call from a theater asking whether I was interested in designing The Diary of Anne Frank?

What are the odds of that?

Of course I said yes.  And, suddenly, the day had a plan: visit Anne Frank's house, or rather, the warehouse where her family hid during WWII. Which I had intended not to see.  Because wimp.

So I toured the Frank's hiding place and felt all the things I had intended not to feel...  But, because I was viewing this site professionally, I had just that little bit of distance that allowed me to be touched but not... well, blubber in public.

The other night, watching that Designer Run?  I wrapped myself in professionalism.  I took notes and, when the actresses cut too close to the bone, I sketched a random sketch.

Dream Hou$e, Kitchen Dog Theater, playing now!

February Rush

 Well THAT month rushed by!

Since the New Year, two shows (and a wicked lingering cough)...

Now on stage:  Pompeii!! at Kitchen Dog Theater in our new home!

For this clever and darkly funny musical - written by members of the Company - the set design is a blend of the original 2018 production by David Walsh and new bits by myself... like this crazy Wheel of Misfortune.

And Arsenic and Old Lace at Pocket Sandwich Theatre

Both good and funny shows!  (Pompeii!! ends Sunday).

Cheese Burger

Public Domain Image

Some recent advice I'm trying out: ask yourself in the morning what the best thing was about yesterday.

My yesterday was pretty good, so lots to choose from.  But my fav moment was probably when I was painting and aging planks for decks for the set of Kitchen Dog Theater's upcoming Pompeii!! (opening Feb. 12th!) and I got to hand our TD a cheeseborough.  (In highly technical language, this thingie is a weird, twisty pipe clamp/connector.)

I finally got an answer to a long-nagging question:

"Why are these called cheeseboroughs?" 

Apparently, the word "Cheeseborough" is, or was, often stamped right across the thingie.  And, as it was much easier to ask for it by that moniker than to ask for "a weird, twisty pipe clamp/connector" that became its nickname.  But the nickname also has a nickname... to Americans "cheeseborough" easily morphs to "cheeseburger" then to "burger."

So in a theater you'll occasionally hear a lighting guy call out, "Hand me a burger!"

PS Ha! But why is it stamped "Cheeseborough" you ask?  Apparently that's the name of the area of England and the foundry that makes 'em.

Wooly Hats

 Well, Texas and DFW are bracing for another Snowpocalypse...

Of course my next play is supposed to Load Into the Brand New Building Tomorrow, amid "wintery mix."

But amid all the angst of this little problem in the arts in Dallas...

My God!

The situation in Minneapolis! 

The government - OUR government - are murdering citizens in the street!

And then lying about them.  Blackening their names, lying about the threat they did not pose. Murdering a poet and mother of three who was leaving the scene after only observing.  Murdering a nurse, an ICU nurse who worked at the Veterans' hospital and who was protecting a woman ICE agents had shoved.  There only to witness and observe ICE's doings.

And what are ICE doing?

ICE agents - masked and nameless - grab a two year old baby to deport.  They grab a five year old in a wonderfully cute blue fuzzy hat with puppy dog ears to use him as a hostage to grab more of his family and deport them.  

What are the brave people of Minneapolis doing?  Witnessing.  Documenting on their phones. 

Armored only with fuzzy hats against below zero temperatures and even colder hearts...

ICE indeed.

Protest this.

Busy Fall Behind, Busy Winter and Spring Ahead

 It seems like I've had time for everything but blogging!

This Fall it was finally my chance to design The Phantom of the Opera.  A melodrama version for Pocket Sandwich Theatre.  Popcorn was thrown!

This was a chance to pull out a few foam carvings etc. made for earlier shows, like the grand Water God (8'-0" long) originally designed, years ago, for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare Dallas.  Here he's to be seen hiding in the lights... just as shy as the Phantom himself.

Designing and building the Phantom's organ was the most fun.  It was mostly of pool noodles for this full-foam show, but incorporated a real keyboard, and its frame was mostly parts of a vantage baby crib.  In this horror-drenched (ha!) tale, the most fearsome sight may have been the stagehands' rear view of this organ case, a 1950's Scary Bunny!

But the BIG deal this Fall was finishing a fantasy novel!

It's a long story...  A friend and I started collaborating on a short story... that got out of hand.  Huge fun!  More news on that story later, when it's closer to public release.  Suffice, for now, to say that writing, editing, revising, illustrating, and designing a cover for this epic took a whiiiile.

What else is Up-Coming?

Theatrically there are four shows: the triumphant opening of Kitchen Dog Theater's new home with the critically acclaimed and member-created show Pompeii!!  Then Arsenic and Old Lace and Home, I'm Honey at Pocket (plus Werewolf of London in the Fall) and then the third and last installment of Stage West's Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Ghost Machine.

Scenic Designer Soaks

 

Public Domain image courtesy of Picryl

Today was my first day of painting for this year's production of Ebenezer Scrooge at Pocket Sandwich Theatre... and my most recent Scenic Soak TM.

A proper Scenic Soak TM involves a tired paint-stained wretch at the end of a longish day that  involved ladders and buckets; a long cool drink, preferably alcoholic; a hot water filled bathtub; soap, of course; and a pumice stone.  Because nowadays when most paints are also primers, the paint you painted yourself with doesn't come off easily!

(This is true for the latex house paints commonly used at many theaters.  True scenic paint may not.)

A lovely ritual.  I recommend it.

Be sure to rinse the tub thoroughly! afterwards... because paint flecks don't come off the tub easily either.

Did I Promise to Post More Often?

 Hahahaha!

A linocut print of the city of Ptolith, in Aenoriia - art by Clare Floyd DeVries, 

   world by AstrophagyMC

I have been really busy though this Fall; traveling, a little theater, and writing on a long-form fiction project related to those imaginary Minecraft cities I've been helping build for so long.

Now I'm illustrating that and discovering the fun of linocut printing!  I'm currently pretty inky myself and my house is even more filled with little teeny tiny slivers of linoleum... everywhere.  They stick to bathtubs BTW.  

(Now I bury you in examples to make up for so few posts.  Brace yourself!)

I love that these crazy prints combine my architecture, Minecraft, D&D, writing, and art.

Theater?  Less busy, because of traveling.  But my set for the Phantom of the Opera is onstage at Pocket Sandwich Theatre in Carrollton right now.  A fun melodrama!  Go see it and throw some popcorn.

The Phantom of the Opera melodrama, Pocket Sandwich Theatre

Summer Busy

 In a bit of a break from theater design I've been busy with summer visits - to and fro - as well as swimming, holidays, and a lot of Minecraft, D&D, and writing.  

In the Venn diagram of those last three plus artsiness, I've been teaching myself how to make linocut prints.  (My house is now covered in teeny tiny slivers of linoleum and smears of ink.)

Part of this effort is just for the fun of it (I've always liked woodcuts and this is a similar aesthetic, but cheaper/easier for a beginner) and part of this is a attempt to learn to design more simply and boldly, and to not lean so heavily on color.