A friend of mine, Joseph Cummings, recently designed Into the Breeches! for Mainstage Irving / Las Colinas.
He used several beautiful, old-fashioned painted drops created by Dallas's former Wolf Studio. This was an important theatrical design and scene shop - founded by Peter Wolf - that once created all the scenery for Dallas Summer Musicals (now Broadway Dallas). Many local designers and painters worked there, including the noted designer Bob Lavallee and the late Wade Giampa. (Who was an enormous help to me as I was finding my feet as a theater designer. So kind and so much missed...)
THIS is the kind of thing that studio routinely produced!
Drops by Wolf Studio, reused for Into the Breeches! Mainstage Irving/Las Colinas, designer Joseph Cummings
Joseph has started researching the history of Wolf Studio - as I hear more about it I'll pass on more pictures. UPDATE: Read Joseph's blog HERE for a history of Peter Wolf's studio and these particular drops.
That downstage teaser, the swoopy proscenium design, was created in the 1970s for a touring regional / Broadway production of Sound of Music.
Addendum: When I designed Into the Breeches! a few years earlier at Stage West, I too felt the need for painted drops... so their shop's talented scenic painter painted a few small "banners" AKA "legs":
