Big Fish

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been CRAZY busy.  Between the holidays, visitors, and deadlines there's just been no time (or energy) to blog.  But here's a little of what I've been up to...

Big Fish for Junior Players.

A lovely, very successful, show.

Junior Players' Big Fish  A stylized Alabama river bank, which framed the show.

Schematic design sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

Junior Players' Big Fish. Photo by DiAnn L'Roy

Among the time intensive parts of this show were creating the abstract "Spanish moss"... made from string and drinking straws and beads... and hours and hours of stringin'.  Thank goodness for volunteers!  Thank you, thank you!

Here's a closer look:

Very hard to capture them on film, but in the theater these lacy dingle-dangles caught the light and added a lot of atmosphere.  (They also helped lower the apparent height of the proscenium, which helped better scale it to the young performers.  This is a HUGE stage.  The proscenium is 30' high and, what, 60' wide?  Immense.  Very nice facility though - my first design at the Moody Performance Hall in Dallas' Arts District.)

So, a few more looks:

Big Fish - sketch for "The War" scene

Hard to catch on film is... well, really, any of the larger setting around the actors.  Photographers naturally concentrate on faces, but I assure you, there's some pretty spiffy bunting hanging there above those faces.  See what I mean?  

(The bunting you can't hardly see was painted at about 10:30 at night - past my bedtime -  so their style is, um, loose.  While other things were painted on the venue's loading dock on the coldest day Dallas has seen for a while.  My volunteers and I were blue... and that was before we spilled the bucket of blue paint.)

Big Fish - this photo and the following ones are  by DiAnn L'Roy

Photos are great, but they just don't - can't - give the whole experience. 

Of course, sketches can't really show the experience either... they just try.

Big Thanks due to the many volunteers (especially my beaders n' painters!), to the TD!, to the amazing directors and other designers (costumes! lights!  wow!), to the incredible Junior Players organization, and most of all to the talented and hard-working actors.  A wonderful show.