Wright at Home

In the market for a new home?  There's a pristine 1960 era Frank Lloyd Wright "Usonian" house for sale!  With all its original furniture and fittings.

HERE

Plan for FLW's Dana House - believed public domain

The Ghost in the Theater

Many theaters are reputed to be haunted.

I wouldn't be surprised.

There IS a sensation in almost any theater building that's more than a few years old that performances may sort of... linger... in the space.  To me at least, different stages have different vibes depending on their age and character, but any stage feels anticipatory - as if it waits for the next act - and also a bit whisper-y with past performances.  This is true when sitting in one of the velvet seats in the house, but especially true in the darkness of the wings and backstage.  (Way up in the catwalks?  I wouldn't venture there alone without real business; it just doesn't feel like a place for tourists.)

I'm not getting all Magic 8 Ball TM  here - just making an observation.

Of the theaters in Dallas Fort Worth there is only one that I've heard claims to a haunting.  (There's another where haunting seems faintly possible though.)  The Dallas Theater Center building - the old Kalita Humphreys - is reputed to be haunted now and then by its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

In a very real way his character does permeate the building - as it must any of his designs - simply because his architecture reflects so clearly his personality through his choices.  A short man, his horizontal "Prairie" style of design gives the theater low-hung soffits that feel comfortable to me, but must oppress tall people.  Likewise, the angled stair treads of the Kalita's narrow stairs demand that visitors Pay Attention to the Building.  And their own feet.  (One drink too many and many patrons have fallen down the steps.  In fact the steps to the restrooms were rebuilt to the standard way years ago because so many patrons fell.)  And FLW's floor plan backstage, with its rat-maze corridors and identical stairs that go to different destinations... everyone gets lost backstage at least once.  Try finding the Coke machine!  Twice.  Dare ya.

But besides this very material kind of haunting, there are claims that Frank Lloyd Wright's shade occasionally attends rehearsals.

I haven't seen him.  However the carpenter for my last show there, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, reports that he kept seeing in the corner of his eye a man sitting the front row - house left, 2-3 seats in from the aisle - who, whenever he really looked... wasn't there.  This is where, according to other sightings, FLW likes to sit.  Just watching.  Very benign.

Now, where FLW ought to haunt the building is in its elevator.

There's an old story - how true I don't know - that the master refused to have an elevator in his theater, designing, instead, two switchback ramps to bring up scenery from the basement carpentry shop.  (He didn't really believe in much scenery - his building should be enough.)  The story goes that the elevator was installed secretly - where a second ramp was supposed to go - and hidden from the aged FLW by strategically placed scaffolding etc. during his site visits, only revealed after his death.  Great story.  With all due respect - the elevator IS needed, because the horrible ramp at stage right is utterly unworkable.  If you could successfully roll even an office chair up that thing in the dark between scenes you'd be lucky.  But FLW's posthumous disapproval may well explain why it's such a very cussed elevator.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright does haunt that elevator - some anonymous theater crew made sure of that: "Nooooo ELEVATORS in my Theatre!!!"

Frank Lloyd Wright's face in his theater's elevator - gifted to Public Domain

This photocopy portrait has been riding up and down in the stage's freight elevator for years - as long as I've worked there certainly - so it's getting rather torn and shabby, but many of us have mended or re-taped it in its place.  It seems appropriate.

Copy-Cat Architecture

Waaaaay north of Dallas on Interstate Highway 35, just inside the Oklahoma border, is the first of several Native American casinos, The Winstar.  Presently, this is under construction.  A new parking garage is being added... and given facades.  Facades "borrowed" from famous buildings.

Okay, loosely "borrowed."

Winstar Casino parking garage - photos gifted to public domain

You can see the loony quality of these borrowings pasted onto a garage from the photo (see the ramp through the Parthenon's columns?), but it takes miles of empty north Texas and Oklahoma to give this architectural collage its complete shock value.  

Here's a loose version of Venice's Doge's Palace.

Interesting to see how far from the original a copy can vary and yet, driving by at 70 miles an hours, make you still say, "Look! The Doge's Palace!"

Or "The Houses of Parliament!"

"The Colosseum!" Or, my favorite, the Guggenheim.  Frank Lloyd Wright would absolutely blow a gasket.

I'm wondering about the symbolism of using these mostly European landmarks (there is a crazy Asian building or two) to decorate this casino in Oklahoma owned by the Chickasaw Nation.

There is a joke: now that the country's population is shifting to the coasts and away from the central farmlands, emptying the Great plains of the descendants of the European settlers that took it from the local tribes, that to get their country back the native Americans only need to wait.  

Maybe the Chickasaws figure they're hurrying that re-possession one poker chip at a time.  Is this jokey building a broad hint? 

Set Designer's Day - Full Time

Yesterday was a full day.

Most of the day was at Kitchen Dog finishing up In the Next Room: painting "snow"; stenciling around the doctor's exam room (a Frank Lloyd Wright stencil - uber cool); hanging portraits of famous doctors in the same room; and watching the rest of the team struggle with snow machines.  (Special effects = tricky.)

The evening was in Fort Worth at Circle Theatre at a production meeting and a run-through of The Fantasticks.  (Which will be charming.)  I missed lunch but got a 15 minute dinner.

On the long, late, dark drive home there were two big construction detours that got me lost and the car's CD player ate my parking lot ticket...

Today?  Drive that loop again for final-finishing at KD and meet-the-painter and furniture pull in FW.

Set Designer's Life

A nutsy day today.

I'll leave soon to go paint the floor of the revolve at the Kalita Humpreys.  My knees are stiff today unfortunately - considering I need to stand and paint for four hours or so - but it's a real thrill to work on a Frank Lloyd Wright stage.  Though, come to think of it, the revolve wasn't there originally nor, really, much of the present stage and FLW never even saw the building completed...  nevertheless there are funny 30 degree twisted stairs he definitely designed and there's a feeling of FLW looking over your shoulder now and then.  (When there's more time I'll tell the FLW elevator stories.)  It's a cool but, honestly, a confusing building - a rat's maze backstage.

After that, a race northward to be part of a theatrical panel discussion for the Young Actors' Guild in McKinney.  Carrying models and drawings with me.