The Blogging Habit - a Huuuuge Catch-Up Post

"Where have you been?" my faithful readers (all both of them) might ask.

Sorry, it's been a wild few months and I haven't posted a thing.  First there were a bunch of shows and family health issues and holidays, then family weddings and more shows, and now home repair and yet more shows...  Blogging - like exercising - turns out to be hard to do regularly, but much much harder to do if you get out of the habit!

I'm trying to regain the blogging habit.

So, what did I miss blogging about?

RECENT SHOWS:

The shows at the end of last year included Once, my first show ever at Theatre Three.  I never got to see the final show.  We had tickets and friends lined up to see Opening, but spent the evening at the hospital instead (all's well now, so no worries); rehearsals however were wonderful!  Here's a sketch, inspired by Dublin's architecture and street art scene.

Once at Theatre Three - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

Almost simultaneous was Men on Boats at Circle Theatre (my last there as Resident Set Designer - they're getting rid of residents, new management, new philosophy).  Suggesting the Grand Canyon on Circle's low-ceilinged stage was a bit of a trick!  Here's the model... which was finished and painted in a hospital room.  (A great conversation starter with nurses.)

Men on Boats at Circle Theatre - model and design by Clare Floyd DeVries

The actual set was built from ordinary flats and platforms with an added layer of carved foam and then paint.  Big thanks to the great carpenters and painters who pulled this off with while I was preoccupied with other things.  Thank you.

At Kitchen Dog Theater, Radiant Vermin was a completely different kind of design - a minimalist sort of Monopoly house all-white stage with spiffy model house footlights.

Radiant Vermin at Kitchen Dog Theater - sorry, I don't know who the photographer is (tell me and I'll eagerly credit them).  

The floor and wall - to ensure perfect, seamless whiteness - were built very smooth and flat, then covered with stretched muslin painted, and frequently re-painted, white, white, white.

Radiant Vermin at Kitchen Dog Theater - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

And, lastly, Kiss Me Kate at MainStage Irving Las Colinas.

Kiss Me Kate at MainStage Irving Las Colinas - a construction drawings, just for variety

It was a little hectic just last Fall!  

Since then You Got Older at Kitchen Dog has opened and closed...  

I don't have any good images for that one yet, but I'll add them asap.  Basically, it was one of those scripts with many varied settings that are difficult to do on a small stage - reality, fantasy, garden (with growing/dying bean plants), bedroom, kitchen, dive-bar, hospital room, woods during a violent snow storm, imaginary cabin snowed-in during that blizzard...  

Our solution was to build a seemingly simple wall of "weathered" wood slats that opened up or pulled out and thus transformed to suggest the different locations.  I compared it to a Swiss watch... but maybe more a Swiss cuckoo clock?

You Got Older at Kitchen Dog Theater - sketch plan by Clare Floyd DeVries

UP-COMING SHOWS:

Several exciting things are coming up, including Office Hour at Circle Theatre (my first as a visiting designer), Wolf at the Door at Kitchen Dog, and - the BIG excitement! - my first Off-Broadway show, an Equity Showcase of Self-Injurious Behavior at Urban Stages in NYC.  Can't show sketches of this yet - the director needs to see them first - but I thought I'd blog the whole process here as it goes along.  

So, new section...

Self-Injurious Behavior - the Off-Broadway Adventure:

To date, this show - written by Dallas actress/playwright Jessica Cavanagh -  has had a first, very successful, run at Theatre Three's downstairs space Theatre Too.

This run was so successful that it was decided to pick the whole thing up and move it to New York: props, costumes, director, whole company, and designers...  except for the original set designer - who had conflicts - and the original set - which wouldn't fit this completely different stage.

Hence me!  A lucky fluke... which is often how Big Breaks work I notice.

More on this show as it develops...

Passing...

This weekend was saddened by the death of Rose Pearson, co-founder of Circle Theatre.

Rose added hugely to the arts in Fort Worth.  

Any idea how much hard work, dedication, and grit it takes to make a theater last - thrive! - for 35 years? It's a BIG accomplishment.  A good memorial.

Throughout the fifteen years I've been privileged to work at Circle, Rose's influence was always strong in her theater, but what I'll remember best was how, even when she was very ill, she remained closely involved - coming in for important board meetings, meeting visiting playwrights, or working by phone when she could.  She even used her too-up-close view of the hospital experience to inform a production by making suggestions on the privacy curtains around the only-pretend-patient's bed.  Art uses everything.  

A woman of amazing strength.

Her theater?  Much saddened, but continuing on under the guidance of her husband and Circle co-founder Bill Newberry. 

Courtesy of Circle Theatre

A French Trend

It's been busy here at Scenic Central:

Fun House Theatre and Film opens their School Bus Named Desire tonight.

This clever reimagining stars the younger members of the kids-troupe.  Always interesting to work with these guys; Bren and Jeff are brilliant and the youngsters amazing.  Bonus of Dave Tenney as TD.  This design, for me, was an interesting mix of kindergarten classroom and the New Orleans of Blanche Dubois.  There's crayon work by cast members (Aa is for Alligator, Bb is for Beignet etc.), a playhouse modeled on French Quarter buildings overlooking Jackson Square (plus a slide), and a lotta midnight painting (because summer camp and rehearsals mean carpentry and painting only happen after 9:00 p.m.).  Well worth seeing.

Color study for A School Bus Named Desire at Fun House Theatre and Film

There's a definite French theme to my design lately.

Circle Theatre just Teched their production of Lovers & Executioners which is going to be wonderful.  Gorgeous costumes by director/designer Robin Armstrong, terrific cast, and a nice (I think) set of an 18th C town outside of Paris.  With working fountain.

Half finished carving for the fountain of Lovers & Executioners

Here's the fountain carving before it was painted - or mounted.  Homework for me and my snap-blade Olfa knife - that and the serrated bread knife from my kitchen.  The foam was leftover from an earlier show (hence the blue paint).  It's several hunks held together with wood skewers and white glue.

Fountain under construction, Lovers & Executioners

And here it is, primed and standing where it was intended to go.

Mostly built 17th C French Town set for Lovers & Executioners, Circle Theatre

This is the context photo: the rest of the town set when construction is nearly finished, but before scenic painting has advanced.  Great work by TD Rick Morrison and his team!

Actually, as I type, the carving's fate is a bit up in the air.  Seeing the Designer Run last night, I realized that action at the fountain means nothing as large (or fragile) as this carving can go in that location... Actors and scenery would obliterate each other.  

So I'm proposing the dolphino be raised to the top of the fountain - under the triangular pediment and above the tile - ornamental but out of the way, with only a soft, minimalist spout for water.  (Tile decoration will jazz that up.)  

But at this moment All is In Flux.

While that suspense (and the rest of the set) builds, here's a sketch of the finished set to hang on to:

Schematic design sketch for Lovers & Executioners, Circle Theatre - by Clare Floyd DeVries

ADDENDUM:  Want to see how it turned out?  Look HERE.

Tech Hell x 3

That title says it all.


Three shows opening soon (so get yer tickets!):

All My Sons WaterTower Theatre, Addison
The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild Contemporary Theatre of Dallas
I and You Circle Theatre, Fort Worth

The Muse

I just found a funny - and quite true - video riff by Anna Akana on The Muses's role in your creativity:

"Your Inner Muse"

Oh, that Muse...  never around when you want her.  HERE's a Squidoo page I put together on creativity - it goes with the illustration below.

What else is going on?

I've read my next Circle Theatre script: Stella and Lou and am meeting the director soon to discuss the set design.  I've recently met with the folks at Fun House Theatre and Film about that next show, Stiff, which the amazing Jeff Swearingen is writing.

And I'm finishing up the first draft of my next theater book, The Green eBook of Sustainable Theater.  There will (eventually) be a paperback edition too... which I guess I'll have to title The Green Recycled-Paper-Book of Sustainable Theater?  I tell ya, the research for this is teaching me waaaaay more than I thought I knew about the topic.

Get Yer Tickets!

I've got four (count 'em 4!) shows worth seeing right now or very soon:

At Kitchen Dog Theater, Gidion's Knot, which has been getting really good reviews, running just through the 26th.  (Get tickets fast.)  This script raises some fascinating questions.

At Fun House Theatre and Film, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, opening tonight!  With only a short run also through the 26th.  It's going to be terrific, I think.  The kids (who are 99% of the cast) are amazing!  An Escher-ish set that I'm proud of.  (Still digging gray paint out from under my fingernails.)

Escher arches - believed public domain image

Opening soon at WaterTower Theater, the Dallas restaging of Circle Theatre's steamy-good Venus in Fur.  Opens the 27th and runs through May 18th.

And opening May 1st at Circle Theatre, The Other Place, which runs through the 24th.  An intriguing how-much-is-in-her-head? kind of piece.

Tickets! Tickets!  Get yer Tickets!

Dallas Theater is Varied

...Is what it is.

Within three days I saw The Odd Couple, A Brand New Boise, and The Ultimate Easter Experience.

The first, by Neil Simon is, of course funny, with wit well polished by a brilliant writer and decades of performance, plus Broadway principals, distinguished regional actors, and a nice pricey set.  The second, by Samuel D. Hunter, is occasionally funny (wit is not what that playwright is really aiming for), also with good regional adult actors, and (I like to think) a good set of moderate means.  (At Circle Theatre.)  The third, by Jeff Swearingen, is funny, witty, politically pointed, too recently written to have such a Simon-ize polish yet, but hilariously performed by mostly kids on a fun Easter-egg colored set of no budget to notice.  (By my buddy Joseph.)

Nuts-fun is what it is.

There is the Easter Bunny, but there is also Uncle Sam, Robert Oppenheimer, Marilyn Monroe,  a pair of slacker soldiers who become... well, ya gotta see 'em, and (my favorite) the comic stylings of Joseph Stalin.

Publicdomainpictures.net

I couldn't even begin to type the crazy plot... wouldn't want to spoil it anyway.

Of all these disparate shows - each well done in its own way - I was surprised into laughter most by the kids.  Really funny stuff: sophisticated references for the adults, ridiculous (and howlingly funny) shtick for the youngsters.

I've been hearing about Jeff's shows at Funhouse Theatre and Film for a while now - glad I got to experience one.

Giving Day

Today is North Texas Giving Day - your best  chance to support the performing arts in DFW, while streeeetching your dollar.

All gifts of $25 or more given TODAY will be "matched" by extra funds!  (Just like mine were.)

For the price of two movie tickets, we theater folk would be very very grateful.  

And your support will go a long way!  At Kitchen Dog...

$25 pays for copies of the script for the cast, designers, and crew

$50 buys two lightbulbs for stage lights (see why theater's expensive?)

$150 pays for one costume for one actor

$1000 pays all expenses for one staged reading of a new play

$5000 buys building supplies for all shows in a season (we pinch pennies!).

Just click on the theater name to reach the Giving Day page, where Spending Your Cash For a Good Cause is made very simple and pleasant, even down-right enjoyable.  It's that glow of nobility, that's what it is.

KITCHEN DOG THEATER  

And here are some other theaters doing good work, that I also work with:

WATERTOWER THEATER  

CIRCLE THEATRE  

UPTOWN PLAYERS

Thank you.  There IS no theater without you.

Opening and Other Up-Dates

Saturday night was the Opening for See How They Run at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth.

A very funny show.  The audience howled and clapped - adding ten minutes in laughter, so that actors had to find ways to vamp until their next line could heard.  A nice kinda problem!

I'm pretty happy with the Tudar style, half-timbered set.  There had to be a few minor compromises on the details of this one due to real-life-situations which took up some of the builder's time, but nothing an audience would notice.  It happens.

I spent the afternoon before opening in Fort Worth.

The Kimbell Art Museum had few visitors (they're between big shows and knee deep in construction), but part of their wonderful permanent collection was on display, so I was happy to visit favorites like Elisabeth Vigee LeBrun's self portrait and Matisse's L'Asia.

Ancient pieces are currently featured.  There's a lovely bronze head with amazingly curling hair.  A lovely crouching marble Venus.  A few red-figure vases...  How, I wondered, could the Greek vase painter of 2500 years ago make the gory death of Pentheus so beautiful?  Even his dismembered torso (partly hidden by the display stand) has dignity and beauty.  You can see it below, or better on the museum's website  HERE  (Click on the Pic for a detailed close-up.)  There's a wonderful crispness and richness to the lines that define the characters in this tragedy and a balance between linear and solid-area painting that I admire.  Decorative ceramic painting is an unforgiving art - it's hard to fix a mistake - so the sure hand here is remarkable.

In many ways this illustrated story is similar to a modern graphic novel.  The original viewers would have known the story and not needed the museum's cue card explaining that King Pentheus had forbidden the worship of Dionysus (or Bacchus, the wine god and the king's own cousin).  He forbade the women of his kingdom (his aunties and mother included) to take part in these rites.

Well.

You can imagine a Greek god's reaction.

Pentheus's mother only recognized her son's head on her sharp stick after the wine induced frenzy faded.

The longer you look at and think about this scene of the insulted god Bacchus's revenge, the more disturbing this beauty is...

The Death of Pentheus, Kimbell Art Museum, believed fair use

Construction of the new addition to the Kimbell Museum is proceeding.  New concrete work is finally above grade.  A few long beams have been delivered and set in place.  Wrapped in such heavy black plastic, I wonder whether these are wood beams?  Or pre-cast concrete unusually well protected?  You can start to see the massing of the new building versus the existing one now and, so far, it seems as if the original will not be overwhelmed...  we'll see.

I do hope, once the new building is done, there will be some repairs to the existing Kahn building; I spotted quite a bit of damage to the too-thin travertine of its steps and porch floors.

After this museum visit - pizza!

I was happy to see one of the theater critics having a good meal at the same restaurant.  I have long advocated for DFW actors and designers to chip into a special fund to make sure critics get a good meal and a drink before coming to see a play - the last thing we want is a hungry/grumpy critic.

A grumpy critic might write a review a little too much like that ancient vase-painter painted his gory picture!

Fight Call and Farcical Design

Last night was the Designer Run for the British farce See How They Run at Circle Theatre.

It's going to be funny!

But before the Run there was Fight Call, to rehearse various chases and physical bits.

Director Robin Armstrong is known for farce and physical comedy - creating one of the best comic moments I've ever seen in Incorruptible - a brilliant silent fight between a man and a woman (who was supposed to be dead at the time) literally over the head of a monk who knelt, praying, with his eyes closed.  As he finished his prayer and opened his eyes, the woman lay there again "dead" in front of him - fight over.  Perfectly timed.  So it was fascinating to watch this new show's fight rehearsal.  I didn't know (being no actor or athlete) that such scenes are practiced at varying speeds: slo-mo, 3/4 speed, and full speed (AKA did-you-catch-that?!)  I could see the actors becoming both controlled and fluid.

For See How They Run, it's lots o' chases and mock fights that turn into real mayhem... Very funny stuff.

How does this effect the set?  (Because a Designer Run is not called just so I can giggle.)

Well, first of all there's safe footing for these running actors.  We'd intended to seal the painted stage floor with a slightly glossy/slick polyurethane, to ease a scene when an actor is dragged away.  But, what with all this running around, it became obvious that it's more important to make the floor non-skid. We'll leave the stage as an UNsealed painted finish.  Luckily its faux "stone" look will hide some skid marks and, if damaged, will be relatively easy to touch up.

Then there's the rug in front of the sofa.  There's a mock fight there, so padding under the carpet is important (not to bruise actors), but there's still all that running... so we'll triple pad the rug, then firmly staple it to the stage to keep it from sliding.

Furniture selection is inportant.  There is so much physical business on (and over) the sofa that it had to be not just a good period "look" (meaning appropriate fabric and style) but well padded.  There are gym mats that get less of a workout than this couch!  The sofa will get screwed down to the floor too.

In a farce doors must always be sturdy specimens with heavy-duty hinges, catches, knobs, and latches.  Having doors "bounce" back open when slammed is a problem to solve.  At this stage of the build, doors are in place, but hardware is still being found and installed.

At the floor plan stage of set design, door placement and distance between entrances are critical decisions, because this effects comic timing.

I've designed this vicarage as a Tudor half-timbered house.  Building timbers from foam might have been a good/cheap idea for a straight play, a drama, but as this is farce they need to be of sturdier plywood.  There's a stair rail that gets some rowdiness, so the carpenter has built it like a wooden M1 tank.

A wooden tank - found HERE

After watching the Designer Run, building this set like a wooden tank seems about right... it's a comic battlefield!

Reminder: The Whipping Man Opens Saturday!

Just a friendly reminder that my show The Whipping Man opens tomorrow at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth.  Tickets should go fast since this play was an off-Broadway hit... and, besides, it's terrific.

(Don't look too hard at the set in this photo - not done yet.  Waaaaay cooler now it has texture, destructo-scenic-paint etc..)

Photo courtesy of Circle Theatre

HERE's more at the Dallas Morning News.

Spring Sunshine

Makes it much easier to draft.

Well, no, but it makes it more fun to look out the window as I draft.

The Whipping Man opens Saturday at Circle Theatre.  Get your tickets now!  Should be a good show.  And there are several good museum shows in Fort Worth at the same time - make a day of it.  The Kimbell Art Museum has "The Age of Impressionism," which will be very popular, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art has one of early Sargeant paintings that I really want to see.

Meanwhile I'm drafting on Boeing, Boeing for WaterTower Theatre, reading Mistakes Were Made for Circle's next show (which needs a speedy design), and just received a new version of Ruth to read for Kitchen Dog Theater (ditto).

Public domain image

Nice News

I just found out that my set design for Boeing, Boeing at Circle Theatre won a Column Award!  Pretty cool.

Boeing, Boeing at Circle Theatre, set design by Clare Floyd DeVries

(Click on the pic to see it better.)  It's always very heartening to learn that people like your work.  

This show was a bit tricky to design, mainly because Circle's stage is quite small and the script called for seven (7) doors - the design challenge was to make it NOT look like a wall of doors!  And then to make it look French and '60s. The time period mainly through the Pop Art and details, French through architectural detail and views o' Paris.

Earlier posts on Boeing, Boeing: Shopping, Approaching Opening, Incomparable Theater, and Critics.

Seven in One Blow Opens November 17th!

At Circle Theatre in Fort Worth, a very funny, family-friendly holiday show:

Fun With Construction Drawings

Here's a little tidbit from today's drafting - a Royal Ensign (a flag, more or less) for the royalty of Seven in One Blow: or the Brave Little Kid that starts building Monday at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth:

Design copyrighted Clare Floyd DeVries

This show should be a heck of a lot of fun!  

(The goofy squirrels BTW are authentically armorial.  Can you imagine a knight riding into battle bearing his Dreaded Squirrels Shield?  It's right up there with Monty Python's rabbit from The Holy Grail for sheer terror, right?)

Not A Review - The Fantasticks

Why "not a review"?

Because I can't be impartial - whether I was involved in a particular show or not, I usually know someone who was.  And because I can't pretend to judge: to decree that This was better than That, or this was Worthy or Unworthy.  I'm incapable of making any sort of a "Top Ten" list!  I just know what I like* (or don't) at the moment and usually (not always) why.

I can recommend a show... but it's up to You to decide whether you're likely to agree with me.

The Fantasticks?  Like it.  A good rendition - close to the original show's spirit - with real talent and nice voices.  Sweetness shines through.  I really really like the text.  The songs are still fresh and clever; I love "September."  In this production, everyone on stage does well (talented youth and experience), but my especial favorites have to be the Mime and the two clownish, side-kick characters - the guy who (mis)quotes Shakespeare and the guy who dies.  Funny, funny death scenes.

Buy a ticket to Circle Theatre's show.  See if you agree with me.

Commedia dell'Arte charcters - believed public domain

* "I know what I like" is the classic definition of the non-Art Critic, I believe.  Sigh

Designer's Day - Speed Teching

The Tech for The Fantasticks at Circle Theatre was incredibly efficient yesterday: I dropped by to drop-off the ribbon-curtain for the "Glen" scene and spent a whopping twenty minutes trimming this to fit and discussing with the director what's left to be finished on the set.  Tech is mostly a lighting and sound day.  So the lighting designer was busy as was the music director.  Things were happening!  The mood was purposeful and efficient (not true of all Techs I've seen) and progress was, um, progressing.  Actors were arriving as I was leaving, which is how it tends to go with set designers and actors.

Today I'll head back to do finishing touches - mostly stapling up fabric strips and adding decorative painting to the prop box.

The ribbon-curtain is a fun thing...  At one point in the musical, the lovers are in the woods.  To suggest this, the original production used a "curtain" made from strips of silk.  My version of this was fun to make, in a wrestling-with-an-octopus way.

Photo borrowed from Meridian Jacobs Weblog on weaving

The Fantasticks opens Saturday!

Set Designer's Life - Drafting

It's weird, but after only thirty years...  I'm kinda bored with drafting.

If I can get started, I'm okay.  Force myself to my board and get involved with the design...  Because there's always more design!  You figure out details: how to build this?  What would be the cheapest or most straightforward assembly of materials?  What's critical to visual effect or use and what isn't?  In architecture,  materials and connections have to be substantial, but theater lasts five weeks - which allows a little cheating.  Make that joint Gaf tape!  (Love Gaf tape.)  I rather love the ability to cheat; sometimes it's easier to get the look you want working with cardboard and Gaf, than with granite and stainless steel.

There's no end to design.  After construction drawings are done you talk with the builder, who has a better idea.  Together you develop a third - even better - way.  You scribble details in your sketchbook or on scrap plywood.  Think slow and thorough at your board - then fast and collaboratively at the build site.

I've been busy at my drafting board, working on The Fantasticks for Circle Theatre.

A simple plan, yet mine own... or...  No, actually it's a redesign of Ed Wittstein's original scenic ideas for the first production of The Fantasticks, in Greenwich Village.  This is the longest running  show ever in the U. S. at 42 years.  Here's an amazing Wikipedia quote:

"The producers spent $900 on the set and $541 on costumes, at a time when major Broadway shows would cost $250,000. The original set designer, costumer, prop master, and lighting designer was Ed Wittstein, who performed all four jobs for a total of only $480 plus $24.48 a week."

Amazing?  For two reasons:  Wittstein's  ideas are still perfect for the show (I don't use "perfect" lightly); and both set budget and  designer's pay haven't changed much in forty years.  Circle's budget for both is bigger (thank goodness!), but I'd bet every designer in the DFW area (or elsewhere) has had less to spend and has been paid less on some show or other.  

Be honest.

Okay - I did the math.  According to one estimate, $ 1.00 in 1960 would equal $ 7.46 in 2011 dollars. So...  Wittstein had the equivalent of a present day $ 6714 to spend on his set and was paid (ignore the weekly) $ 4036 as a base fee... for, count 'em, four jobs... so let's say $ 1000-1200 for wearing the set designer hat.

Times haven't changed at all!  In fact, set budgets may have declined, while pay is... still pathetic.  Ouch.

Set Designer's Day - Research

I'm just starting on The Fantasticks for Circle Theater (if one show opens, the next starts).  I've read and noted the script - which I love - now I'm researching...

I don't usually look at earlier productions before I design - in case it over-influences me - but in this case the director wants to stay pretty close to the original production, so I've been looking at that.  I've also looked at  the touring productions.  Over-produced, I think.  Mind you, I understand exactly the problem the designers of those touring shows had: how to make this intimate show fill the usual huge venues on the road.  Fortunately, Circle's small space doesn't present that problem.  (Ha!  Circle's ceiling is only this high.)

Now I'm doing a little research on Commedia dell'Arte, the renaissance era Italian comedy troupes which much influenced this show.

Not a Review - Becky's New Car

Well, Becky's New Car opened last night to a full house and an enthusiastic audience.  (Always nice when folks like the show.)  As an added bonus, Charlie and Benita Staadecker, who commissioned this play, were in the audience - they try to make it to every opening.  What a great idea!  To commission a play, then to travel around the country watching it open.  Coolest hobby ever!

Come see what the fuss is about at Circle Theatre, Fort Worth.