Alice Through the Proscenium - Second Edition is OUT!

 

Toot-toot-toot!

Finally!  My second edition of Alice Through the Proscenium is for sale.  (I'm still wrestling with distribution through Amazon etc. but the publisher is now, um, publishing.)

Alice Through the Proscenium - Second Edition Clare Floyd DeVries

This updated and expanded edition adds a new Case Study, following the full process of Kitchen Dog Theater's production of Alabaster by Audrey Cefaly.  I've also added information on topics I knew little about when writing the first edition, like all the various proscenium stage drapes or working with projections.  This new version includes color photos so is a bit more expensive (sorry), but I'm keeping the older, skinnier, cheaper version alive for the desperately budget-pinched.  

(One nice side effect of including a few color photos though is that now the hand-drawn color wheel illustration is in color!  Woah!)

You can buy Alice 2 at the Lulu Publishing bookstore HERE.

Side note: On Monday I was very excited to receive from The Live Theatre League of Tarrant County an award for Design and Technical Excellence!  Really pleased!

But, in introducing me, my introducer (another thrill, because it was the very distinguished Harry Parker, who said nice things) also told the world that Alice's second edition is OUT! 

Addendum: In his introduction he urged the audience to buy it, saying, "It's funny and I learned things."  Which, frankly, should be on the book's dust jacket... if it had a dust jacket... 

Siege - Day 115

A shout-out to the artists you discover as you research for your own design work!

Most recently I discovered the Gee's Bend quilt makers and their incredible abstract compositions.  Just wonderful unexpected colors and slightly "off" geometries that make them, I think, paragons of quilts... rivaling anything the abstract painters have done.  Inspiring.  I discovered them during research for my last show, Alabaster, set in rural Alabama - a show steeped in folk art of a different style, but the quilts inspired our scenic colors and attitude.

Learn more HERE at Gee's Bend Quiltmakers: Souls Grown Deep.

Gee's Bend quilt - fair use of this image, I think 

And my other oft repeated how-could-I-forget-this?! discovery of the poems of Billy Collins:

"...The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor..."

I found myself in the little hours, still reading in a cooled bath tub...  Wonderful stuff.

More HERE  at allpoetry.com

Siege - Days 57 and 58

More progress on Alice (the book not some girl).  The photographer,  Jordan Fraker, has agreed to let me use his photos in the Case Study chapter about Kitchen Dog Theater's production of Alabaster!

Woohoo!

(That's me woohooing in the photo...not.

Actually KDT Ao-Artistic Director Tina Parker as Weezy the goat.)

Alabaster at Kitchen Dog Theater - photo by Jordan Fraker

The last couple days have been filled with little concerns: research on a new computer and can-I-finally-afford-a-pen-display (not yet).  Banking.  Laundry.  Today's lunch will be yet another architectural continuing education Zoom meeting etc. etc. etc.

Siege - Days... oh heck... a lot... 52, 53, and 54?

Time passes...

The exciting news here is mainly that I'm making good progress on the Case Study chapter of my set design book - the second (and expanded) edition of Alice Through the Proscenium: more scenic set design (to be all formal).  Anyway.  Real progress on the hard, new writing part.  Smaller triumph, the front door is now blue!  

But the big excitement is that all the fantastic folk art from my last Kitchen Dog Theater show, Alabaster, is getting auctioned off starting tonight!  Our big fund-raiser for the year, so bid big!

Here's the link to ebay:  https://www.ebay.com/usr/kitchendogtheater

Siege - Day 23 and 24

Well, today I made some real progress on my theater set design book, Alice Through the Proscenium, Second Edition.  (Doesn't that sound official?)  Today I was explaining the rigging and soft goods of proscenium theaters... a subject I knew even less about back when I first wrote Alice.  I know more now, but still remarkably few of my shows have been for proscenium theaters!  

Today I also repainted the goat weather vane I used for Kitchen Dog Theater's Alabaster.  (The photo background is a little impromptu, just some foamcore board held behind it.)

Goat on a hill weather vane from the play Alabaster 

Did Someone Mention Life/Work Balance?

Ha!

As if.

It's been a crazy,  crazy few months.  Five months.

Several shows, several holidays, and one family health crisis later (pro tip: don't let 89-year-olds fall over, just don't.) I'm finally able to dump some pictures here!  (I'll try to talk more about each next time, when I have more time.)

Harvey at WaterTower Theater:

Harvey, WaterTower Theater - photos by Jason Anderson

Alabaster at Kitchen Dog Theater:    On stage through March 8th!

Alabaster at Kitchen Dog Theater.  The house's bedroom with all our "folk art"

Close-up of art...

An in-progress photo of "weeding" the goat hill side of the set. 

This show is kinda a big deal - this year's Hot Play and our entry into its rolling world premier.  A Theater Jones review is HERE , a Column review HERE, and really nice article in the Dallas News with good pictures HERE.  I really enjoyed being part of this effort, working with this talented team,  and getting to meet the playwright!

The Royal Dilemma by Think India and Mainstage Irving-Los Colinas:  I'm attaching a blurry picture of the cave scene from The Royal Dilemma from last fall (the blurry may hide the not-quiiiiite-done aspects.  This was an insanely ambitious show and a ton of fun!  I never got good pictures.)

Think India Foundation's The Royal Dilemma

I will attempt to be more regular in my posts from here on out.

If no one else breaks an arm...?