Catch Up Post

It's been a very busy spring and summer - and I did not keep up with it at all in blogging! - so here's a grab bag of what-I-did-this-summer-ness:

And Wow! did I not blog a lot!  

1)  Let's start with listing the shows I worked on after Murrow:  Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper for Echo Theatre at Dallas' Bath House Cultural Center, Herbitts, Wizards, and Borks! Oh My! at Pocket Sandwich Theatre, the musical Matilda for KWC, and Sherlock Holmes and the Elusive Ear at Stage West Theatre.  I also acted as a mentor for their Design Apprenticeship Program, which involved three student designed in-house shows.  So... lots.

2)  Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper -

This is the kind of biographical play that required a simple, adaptable set that could frame many locations and times.  Our solution was a series of simple stretched fabric panels (very similar to Murrow's).  The big scenic moment was the "wallpaper" scene, when the troubled protagonist struggles with her perception of a sinister figure behind the pattern of the wallpaper.

The only scenic trickery in this show was the hidden wallpaper pattern - strands of leafy ribbon under the stretched fabric, seen only when that panel was backlit - and the real paper the actress could tear - an unnoticed top layer of stretched over the fabric.

3)  Sherlock Holmes and the Elusive Ear -

What a terrific assignment, to design Sherlock Holmes' legendary 221B Baker Street apartment!  The script described red wallpaper... my version of his apartment played up red to the hilt.

Normally I'd have wanted more rugs, but because of the sword fight! an open floor was needed.  The wallpaper is created using three shades of red paint and custom stencils.  My scenic painter did beautiful wallpaper and even more beautiful wood grain.

One important note:  this set will reappear for the next two years for sequels to the entertaining play so the design had to work for being struck and stored.  One consequence is that, in the red wallpaper, a darker vertical stripe was added to help downplay vertical joints between flats, which we couldn't tape over or float out with drywall mud.  

3)  Matilda -

A big fun musical!  With a big fun mostly-kid cast!  

This is the only photo I have, mostly because I had to miss the final-final set dressing and the performances... because some one of those big fun mostly-kid cast (or crew or designers or...) shared their covid with me!  

(A "light" case thank goodness, of the did I-swallow-broken-glass? variation of covid.)

Here are a few paint elevations:

Phew!  I'll talk about Herbitts in the next post.