Pictures in the Paper

Part of the set designer's career is to keep track of what "the papers" - nowadays mostly blogs - have to say about your shows. Luckily, reviews for my now-on-stage productions have been pretty good, which is always a relief.

(Many theater people say they never read reviews... yet somehow they always know.  Psychic, you think?  Me, I read the reviews.)

Here's a sampling:

Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower Theater

Sketch for Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower Theater

HERE's a pretty detailed review of WaterTower's Boeing, Boeing at CriticalRant.com

Ruth at Kitchen Dog Theater

And a review of Kitchen Dog's Ruth HERE at The Observer.

Next up - Circle Theatre's Mistakes Were Made.  I thought the show and the chief actor were electrifying in rehearsal!  Guess we'll see what the critics have to say soon... opens Friday.  Tomorrow!

Or, better still, buy a ticket to one or all of these fine shows and form your own opinion.  

Inspirational Photos

Sometimes when you're trying to find a design idea it helps to look around...

For some weeks now I've been trying to come up with a schematic design for Smokey Joe's Cafe, a sort of '50s musical revue(ish), or rather, an evening made up entirely of music - no book - that seems to be more unified than a typical random revue, yet has no strong story-line either.  Scenicly, it has a strong sense of Time, but not so much of Place.  Specific settings change, as they tend to in a collection of songs.  Ambiance, maybe, is what this show demands.

I find musical reviews difficult, since sound isn't my leading sense (I favor words and pictures) and my imagination tends to fasten on stories and specificity...

So I've been struggling.

The plan?  Oh, the plan was easy - I had it half sketched before I left the initial meeting with the director.  But the "look"... really tough.  All that came to my mind were '50s cliches not worth drawing up.  The only thing that seemed hopeful was the lovely name of the show: "Smokey Joe's."  There seemed promise, though in fact all I developed from that was badly doodled smoke curlicues on the edges of all my notes made in other shows' meetings.

So I've spent a while flipping through books or the Internet, researching, looking for a hint.

And on the morning I absolutely HAD TO FINISH, I finally found my inspirational photo:

Believed public domain photo - from Imprint

I won't include the sketch yet (if you can, please go see the set itself!  at WaterTower Theater), but the secret was the circle.  Smoke rings gave me the design nudge I needed for a good set for Smokey Joe's Cafe.

What else is up lately?  Busy, busy.  Lots of emailing on various shows; lots of shopping mostly for Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower which opens soon; and several hours painting on Ruth at Kitchen Dog which also Techs this weekend and opens soonest.

A Grab Bag

Lots of little notes today:

On my desk is a lovely old copy of Architecture, Gothic and Renaissance by Roger Smith.  My copy is old (found at Half Price Books for a whopping $5, love that place), with a hand written note of "1952" in it.  But after checking online, it looks like the book was actually copyrighted in 1908... which explains the lovely illustrations.  Public domain!  Wahoo!  No doubt you'll be seeing images from it in future posts too.

The Grand Canal, illus. from Architecture, Gothic and Renaissance by Roger Smith - public domain

Also in books, I'm presently reading, well, several things.  Among them the very funny and eye-opening history of the American '5os as a memoir by Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid.  Also a revisionist history of interior design since 1600 (whose title I can't recall this second), more on that later.

On the Film Fest front: I recently watched Cedar Rapids.  I was only accidentally watching it at first - it was on in the room - but I was soon caught up in the adventure and misadventures of the hero, a naive small-town-Iowa insurance salesman on his first visit to his industry convention in the wicked city of Cedar Rapids.

Epic!  The guy's an Odysseus on stormy seas indeed - harrowed to his soul by the temptations of this larger pond.  A fascinating and very funny movie.

Also movie related: Aardman Animations new film The Pirates! is open and I want to see it badly.  These guys are brilliant... Wallace and Grommet?  Chicken Run?  Brilliance in stop motion Claymation.

On the set design frontier: I'm scrambling to keep up with several projects.

Boeing, Boeing is being built.  Its flats (walls) are largely built, leaning around the shop ready to get installed, as the main stage level is built, using the stock steel joists WaterTower Theater has on hand.  On top of that will go a few steps and a slightly raised rear "hallway" with a French "wrought iron" railing.  I got to take a field trip to a shop where the decorative curly-cue part of the railing is waiting - not actually bent metal, but cut from plate steel by very high power and focused water jets.  Fascinating machinery.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, Mistakes Were Made is also being built.  This show will have a puppet fish in it, so the real complications of this simple set are all around how to build this fish tank area to make the fish visible, yet the puppeteer screened.  Tricky.

At Kitchen Dog, Ruth is getting close to building.  The carpenter is considering the drawings - which have been revised a bit as rehearsals, the script, and the director have evolved the work.  Working with a live playwright and developing text is always interesting.  (Earlier post on living playwrights HERE.)

And, of course, there are a couple shows on the drawing board.

Phew!

Further Adventures of a Plan

After meeting with the director of Boeing, Boeing (earlier POST), the plan for the set as it will appear in its new theater venue will be slightly revised: two doors will be switched, the bathroom and a bedroom changing places (which means I need to erase "To Bedroom # 2" and write "To Bathroom" basically) and the wall that holds that bedroom door needs to slide onstage a foot or two in order to ease a slight sight-line issue from a few seats.  (There's always a sight-line issue!)

Oh, and the fake Warhol painting morphs into a fake Mondrian.

A Warhol soup can and a Mondrian - both, I believe public domain

Today's task is to revise this sketch and get copies to the theater so the Artistic Director and Technical director can look 'em over.

Rethinking a Design

My present project is an opportunity to redesign a show for a different stage.  If both were prosceniums, there might need to be few changes, but these performance spaces are quirkier.  (I think prosceniums are kinda dull.)

I first designed Boeing, Boeing - a farce with several gorgeous what were called "stewardesses" in the 1960s - for Circle Theatre in Fort Worth.  This has a small thrust stage with a low ceiling (8') and a not over-large proscenium wall to squeeze seven required doors into.  Yesterday's POST included an elevation sketch.

Now I'm redesigning the show for WaterTower Theater in Addison, Texas, a space with a somewhat wider stage that will be configured like a proscenium this time.  The stage is much taller (30').  Sorta changes things!

Here are plans for comparison.  (Click a pic to see better.  I'm hoping these look about the same scale to you - judge by the doors, about the same size?)

Boeing, Boeing at Circle Theatre 2011

Preliminary (may change, WILL change!) plan for Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower Theater 2012

You'll notice that the later, WaterTower, set has only six doors - not seven.  That's because in staging the show at Circle the director (same director) and I discovered only six doors were needed.  But you'll also notice that, in spite of the larger stage the second time round, most of those doors remain pretty close together.  That's because timing is crucial for a farce; those doors need to be closely spaced (translate as "fast" for acting).  The main entry and the exit to the kitchen were able to shift downstage to the stage-right and stage-left corners, not an option on the previous thrust stage.

Other differences are to do with filling a larger space...  This set needs more size, bulk, presence! in order to be in proportion with this venue and audience size.

I'm meeting the director today, so I'll let you know whether this latest design flies.