Complicated Emotions

 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.  

Where Did the Spring Go?

Poof!

That's where my Spring went.  Apparently.  

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 of Natural 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.

So busy.  And staying busy through June at least.