I was reminded by Reddit of this quote by Ira Glass:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
I've found that writers are often very articulate (go figure!) on the struggles of creating art of any kind... just substitute the word "design" or "painting" or whatever you art is.
There's a perception that big painted theatrical backdrops are old fashioned. Passe'.
Sadly, this is largely true. Nowadays we're more likely to create a backdrop, if we even want one, using projections. (And consequently the art of scenic painting drops is dying away.) It's even more common to do away with scenic drops entirely, instead using the upstage cyc (or scrim or wall) simply for fields of ever-changing color.
But a painted drop can be pretty spectacular. Look at this one, for a production of The Magic Flute:
Public Domain Image
But even in modern productions, usually for a "period" piece, sometimes a painted drop is still useful. Here are a few I've designed in my career...
This was designed for the Trinity Shakespeare production of The Winter's Tale. Huge! To lay it out the scenic painter took over the whole floor of the opera rehearsal hall.
Below is another narrow drop - one of three painted legs - for Stage West's production of Into the Breeches!
For both these shows we wanted a touch of tradition and "period" which hand-painted drops nicely provided.
So much for history - what am I up to today? Another post coming soon...
On one hand, my show, Natural Shocks, had a good opening on Friday night! With a lovely afterparty, sitting in the pleasant breeze of a restaurant's porch.
On the other hand, after a long, hot, over-busy day of Designer Runs and Production Meetings, I came home to an upset call from my mother wondering if I'd been shot dead in the latest mass shooting... just up the road in Allen, Texas. Followed by a discussion between the production team, cast, and crew of our just-opened play on whether its prophetic ending now needs a trigger warning in light of this latest mass shooting.
On the third hand, my set design students did GREAT! today in their presentations.
I do know I've been pretty busy. I've been meeting monthly with my set design students at Stage West (earlier post on our design charrette HERE). They give their end-of-program design presentations this Sunday! Three very motivated and hard-working college students... with schedule's even more crazy than mine.
I've also been designing several shows. First - and still running - the cartoon-hero comedy Captain Phantasm versus the Nefarious Doctor Noir at Pocket Sandwich Theatre. Lots of fun and flying popcorn!
Here is its basic set - an all-purpose vintage urban setting with an overlook of the city's dam and its nefariously threatened water supply! The next sketches show the Scientist's Lab and the Villain's Lair AKA the Pink Pussycat Club. (The pussycat sign lights up and blinks.)
But wait! - another show opens tonight! Echo Theatre's production of Lauren Gunderson's Natural Shocks.
This one-woman play is set in the character's basement and its sketches I made at the speed of the tornado she's hiding from...
I kind of like the immediacy of these sketches:
Echo Theatre production ofNatural Shocks - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries
The scheduling is interesting for this - first this play and then their next, I and You, also by Gunderson, follow each other with only a week between them. So parts of the set are shared, basically the upstage wall with its door. (I'll explain that set in another blog post.)
So tonight Echo's first show opens and tomorrow their second one gets into gear to replace it in a week. Yikes.
Also shifting into gear is the play The Last Truck Stop by Crystal Jackson at Kitchen Dog Theater, opening June 8th.
After being snowed-in iced-in for three days it was nice to walk around the block and watch the ice melting. Our little creek is rushing along, pretending to be a mountain stream, really full of snow melt.
Here's a series of videos I've found while researching info for my set design apprentices on the topic of : "Plans! How and Why... and What Are They!" (I joke, but seriously, floor plans are so fundamental to understanding, designing, and documenting a set design... why is there so little explanation available?)
Here's a wonderful explanation of a clever and charming set by designer Wendy Todd. It has nothing to do with plan drawing, but is just wonderfulness:
Here's one of my favorite architectural explainers, Stewart Hicks, talking about plans:
And here's a face new to me (30 x 40 Design Workshop) with a good discussion of the architectural design process - notice how his drawings morph from rough and schematic, to precise and more real-world. Note the use of my favorite Tracing Paper!
Today's the big day for my Stage West theater set design students - a full day design charrette for a made-up-by-me show:
Pretty sure this is out of copyright as it was published in 1918
Three Little Pigs –
the Musical (the Outline)
Not a kid
version. (Less Disney, more Brothers
Grimm, with cheeky references to Into the
Woods, The Wizard of Oz, and This Old House.) The danger and violence feel real and the
ending – cooking and eating the Wolf – is triumph, retribution and tragedy.
Imagine
being a Pig... This is home-invasion!A monster
beseiges a disjointed family that has to come together as true brothers to save
themselves.Imagine being a Wolf... with
Wife and hungry Pups to feed at home.
Set
in the timeless ever-present of fairytales or hunger and homelessness.
Scene 1 –
The Woods
The
Wolf’s place. Dark. Dangerous.
Hungry.
(Throughout
the play the Wolf narrates –cynical, amusing, ruthless.Sometimes he is joined by a chorus of Woodland Creatures, an ensemble of cute(ish)
dancing / acrobatic critters: Deer, Raccoon, Rabbit, Squirrel, Owl, and that
obnoxious Happiness Bluebird.They’re all
terrified of the Wolf - except for Owl, because it takes a predator to
understand a predator.While Squirrel
and Rabbit don’t trust Owl.TheWoodlanders also sing as Wolf’s Wife and his litter of Pups.)
Scene 2 – A
Road Through the Woods
An
inhospitable No-Pigs’-Land. The Pigs
have been kicked out of their nest, er, sty by their Mother Pig, who can’t
stand the brothers’ arguing, jealousy, and laziness a moment longer. Also there’s no food. So she kicked them out into a hostile and
hungry world.
Scene 3 –
Traveling (Dance tribute to Oz ending with throwing
apples.)
Scene 4 – A
Clearing at the Edge of the Woods. There are apple trees, remnants of an old
orchard, and a feral vegetable garden that still yields a few carrots and
potatoes and such. The tumbled ruins of
the old farmstead are almost back to woodland, but there are bricks and sticks
and, if the meadow grass is cut with that rusty sythe, there could be straw.
Scene 5 –
Same Clearing, building is started.
(Big dance number, a flavor of Seven
Brides for Seven Brothers.)
Scene 6 –
Same Clearing, the House of Straw is complete, then blown away.
(The
hit single “Huff n’ Puff” in its first iteration, repeated for each house.)
Scene 7 –
Same Clearing, the House of Sticks is complete, then blown away
Scene 8 –
Same Clearing, The House of Bricks is complete and smoke comes from
its brick chimney. First Wolf attack.
Scene 9 –
Same Clearing, Full Moon. (Wolf’s and Mrs. Wolf’s big duet.)
Scene 10 –
House of Bricks Exterior/Interior, roaring fire and boiling soup pot. Second Wolf attack.
Scene 11 – Same
Interior,
Dinner! (Stupendous dance number)
(It’s
macabre, but the Wolf, who narrated throughout the story, narrates again now –
his talking head on a plate on the feasting table.He sings that, without him,Wolf’s Wife will have to send the Pups out
into the world... hungry.The play ends
when a Pig puts an apple in Wolf’s mouth to shut him up.)
That's the synopsis. The students will try to come up with designs that solve the problems it presents in a black box theater. (Notice the big one yet? That transition from Woods to Clearing?) (Well, and also the built-in problem of building and blowing-away piggie houses on stage in the audience's full view.)
So, the idea of a charrette is to sit down and thrash out an initial design. I've read definitions online that define it as including input from others (not just the designer) and, in my experience, this can be true. (Architect Charles Moore, a noted and unusually collaborative collaborator once responded to citizen phone calls!) But to me, the all-at-a-single-sitting is the defining aspect. It's a way to force-march through the design process. And the time pressure and presence of others also struggling with the problem that adds oomph! to your thinking.
The students are about a 1/2 hour into it - just starting to grasp the difficulties. We'll see what they've got in 5 1/2 more hours. (5 1/2 hours minus pizza time.)
A little extra tidbit: I discovered that the name "charrette" comes from the French name for the cart that rolled around the Ecole de Beaux Arts, collecting student architects' work. The work would be taken away to be judged... just like the tumbril taking prisoners to the guillotine, or so my old French professor explained.
Well, This happened! A nice article about Stage West's apprenticeship program in the Fort Worth Report. The original article is HERE and I've copied the gist of it to this blog (in case of future internet glitchiness) with my own not-so-spiffy photos.
Stage West Theatre’s apprenticeship program sets stage for next generation
by Marcheta Fornoff, Fort Worth Report January 9, 2023
Clare Floyd DeVries has designed real-life fire stations, doctor’s offices and a string of small-town convenience stores, but for the better part of 20 years she’s crafted full environments from scratch in her role as one of the metroplex’s go-to set designers.
Now the architect-turned-set-designer is helping build the next generation of theater professionals as a mentor for Stage West Theatre’s apprenticeship program.
The idea for the program grew out of the COVID-19 shutdown and a desire to “double down” on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts following the wave of Black Lives Matter protests, said Dana Schultes, the theater’s executive producer.
“We made a commitment to ourselves and to the larger theater community that we would work harder to raise our standards so that more and more people from diverse communities were participating in the creation of shows,” she said.
In order to deliver on that promise, they started a paid apprenticeship program to help unclog the talent pipeline.
The program has separate tracks for separate disciplines. This year, there are three sets of three students matched with a mentor in either sound, costume or scenic design.
Mentors are tasked with helping students understand the full scope of what they do for a show, from pre-production meetings through completion and all of the various steps in between.
“One of the things that I noticed about my own educational experience is that when I matriculated, I was not sure what to do next, and it was really intimidating,” Schultes said. “The ultimate goal is for these young students to not only learn from the best, but then to have opportunities to then do their own shows with the mentors watching after them, to say, ‘I'm here for you if you have any questions.’”
Aaron Knowles Dias, education director for the theater, took the reins for the program this year. Finding mentors who are at the top of their field and great teachers was a priority for Knowles Dias, and she said Floyd DeVries is the perfect example of someone who embodies both qualities.
“She's really a master of bringing other people into that artistic process so that they can access it themselves,” she said. “The artistic process, even for artists themselves, is very mysterious … But she's got that awareness of the process and has a really great vocabulary for sharing it with others. And it's just wonderful.”
Clare Floyd DeVries (right) speaks with apprentices Sierra Lesniak (left), Brooks Davenport (center) and Katie Cooley (right) on the set of the recent production “Handle with Care.” (Marcheta Fornoff | Fort Worth Report)
Katie Cooley, who is studying theater design and technology at the University of Texas at Arlington, arrived at the theater early and had the chance to go over tips for perspective drawing before the first session officially began.
Over the course of the morning and after the other students arrived, Floyd DeVries shared several valuable lessons about what goes into creating a believable set: from problem solving practical needs — like creating pieces that can easily be manipulated or moved — to the more theoretical but equally important questions about using design to match the tone of a play.
For example, several plays might be set in a similar time or place, but the design will vary drastically depending on the intended occupants.
“Whose [Victorian] study is it? Is it Sherlock Holmes? Is it Dr. Jekyll? The White Rabbit (from “Alice in Wonderland”)? Professor Higgins from “My Fair Lady”? Those rooms are all rather different because they have such different personalities,” she explained. “So you have to become a bit of a psychologist.”
Sierra Lesniak, a student at Tarrant County College, plans to be a director someday, but is still deciding whether she wants to work in film or in stage plays. In either medium, she said it will be helpful for her to have a background in scenic design and learn strategies for communicating her visions to others.
“Working on a show, you break it down from what's necessary … And then once you have your foundation, you build into the artistic side,” she said. “So getting to learn the technicalities from the perspective of a scenic designer … to have that under my belt as a director … I'm very excited because the more that I can understand everybody's positions as a director, I think would build me up to be better at my job.”
Fellow apprentice Brooks Davenport is a theater design and technology major student at Texas Christian University. He is excited about the opportunity to plug into the local theater scene and get experience outside of school.
“I feel like this is a space where I think I can have a lot of creative freedom,” he said. “I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like there's a difference in being at school and in a classroom and being in a professional environment. I feel like I will be able to explore and experiment a lot designing here.”
Each of the different disciplines for the apprenticeship program run on their own schedule, but all three tracks will come together in May for a celebration, where the students will each have the opportunity to share what they learned. The program enables growth for both the theater and the students, Knowles Dias, the education coordinator, said.
“We are investing in these artists-in-development now so that they will invest in us tomorrow,” she said. “The way we see it, by bringing them into the Stage West fold and supporting them and nourishing them here, giving them great training and sending them off into the world to find their way and grow in experience, skill and success, we are empowering them to be the torch bearers for local theater down the road.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org or on twitter twitter.com/MarchetaFornoff"
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
In crazy news: Stage West Theatre and I are offering a Minecraft based scenic design class!
Mining (Theater) Craft
Build a
theater!Design and build scenery!In the blocky world of Minecraft enjoy all
the fun and drama of IRL theater design: the joy of group effort and the satisfaction
of individual creativity.Play with 3
dimensional volume, levels, lights, color, and explore the possibilities of
lava in performance... wait... what?
A class for pre-teens
and teens. You’ll need access to Minecraft Java Version (PC based) and just
enough experience to place blocks (easy!) and to walk without falling in lava
(easy! because in “Creative” mode you can fly).You’ll need Discord for in-game conversation and messaging.Completely online, this class will meet Thursdays 7-9,
with access to StageWestWorld between times to keep on building.
Professional architect, award-winning set designer, and
let’s-not-say-obsessed Minecraft builder, Clare Floyd DeVries is the guide as you master this sandbox
game, mining its potential for theatrical creativity. You'll need access to Minecraft Java version (PC based) and just enough experience to place blocks (easy!) and to walk without falling into lava (easy because in "Creative" mode you can fly!). You'll need Discord for in-game conversation and messaging.
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