Furniture Pull

This morning I'm meeting at a helpful theater's warehouse to pull furniture for my up-coming show Ruth, at Kitchen Dog.

It's a huge, HUGE help to poor and struggling theaters (i.e. all theaters) when those with furniture, props, or other assets share their wealth.  I am, personally, grateful for these loans.  It doesn't just improve a show, often it makes it possible.  Especially for period work.

In KD's In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play even the impressive legs of the doctor's table were loaners.  Sure, we could have built that table without 'em, but it wouldn't have looked nearly as solidly, Victorianly, authoritative as that exam table HAD to look - appearing a very Altar in the Temple of Science.

Those legs helped both sell this Doc's authority... and make the sexy carryings-on funnier.

In Fort Worth - enlightened theater world! - one university shares a warehouse with many theaters.  All put furniture in it, all are welcome to borrow it out again, with a simple sign-out book and an honor system.  Dallas?  Nope.  Few theaters can afford a warehouse, but if you call around, many kind groups, schools, or individuals will offer what you need.  (I've had sofas out of living rooms sometimes!)  Theatre Three is particularly kind and helpful and rich in furniture.  Thank you Theatre Three!

Now look again at that photo of In the Next Room...

In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play - photo by Matt Mrozek

See the handsome antique cabinet on the upstage wall?  Holding medical books and instruments?  It helps set the time period, reinforces the doctor's wealth and authority - literally gives him weight - plus it's the only real piece of furniture in the room, almost on the set, so scenically it's quite valuable... (And, as a designer, I love that it has fat corner "legs" too, so it talks to my table.  It's funny.)

Wouldn't be allowed to borrow that this year.

For some reason - no one's been told why - the Dallas Theater Center, which has a grand and very rich storehouse of furniture and props (paid for, in part, by tax money and in tiny part by my ticket purchases over the years)... Well, they've stopped loaning out.

No loans.  Nobody.

This is a great loss.  I'm very grateful for their furniture over the last decade, as I know many many other designers and theaters are, all around town.  The Dallas Theater Center's stock has enriched plays in the entire region.  They have by far, by multiples of tens and hundreds or thousands, the budget for furniture of any other theater in Dallas, Fort Worth, or all the cities around.  Their warehouse is a treasure trove!  I'm sure their generosity cost some time, but... surely the flagship of Dallas theater thinks supporting this region's theater is worthwhile?

I'm heart-sick that DTC's generous lending has stopped.

I wish the Dallas Theater Center would reconsider.  Please loan out to us little guys again.  We may be poorer, but we do good theater too.  We would appreciate your help.

(More on furniture: Return of the Dreaded Sofa and Pulling Furniture, an earlier post on the topic.)

Surfin'

I just happened across the on-line portfolio of a lighting designer, Lisa Miller, who I've worked with several times.  It was a treat to see photos of our shows together at Kitchen Dog:

Charm

In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play

(Both photos by Matt Mrozek

For me, these two shows seem to be bookends to each other... I suppose because the Victorian period is the same and some of the "women's" issues in each play, although the styles of both texts, productions, and sets were completely different, Charm being a sort of magical realism and In the Next Room much closer to realism.  Even the set colors are opposite: blues and greens versus reds and oranges.

Another Strike

In the Next Room closed last night and the set came down today.

Sad.  But sorta Circle of Life-ish.

public domain image

Because, of course, this set comes down so the next set goes up.  (I saw its fascinating model at the strike for mine.)  In a particularly life-cycle way, some of my hand-carved brick was saved so that it can be used to build someone else's set elsewhere.  I saved the brick fireplace arch to be an insta-fireplace on some future set of my own.  Plus a lot of curtain fabric ditto.  But then, the screens we used for this set had already been used for a locally filmed television show, before being gifted to Kitchen Dog.  Much of the furniture (borrowed from two other theaters) has appeared in many earlier shows and will appear in yet more... some of them mine.  That's kind of nice to look forward to.

In theater, what goes around comes around and around and around...

(Earlier posts about Strikes: here and here.)

Reminders

In the Next Room at Kitchen Dog in Dallas is still running.  Catch it if you can - I'm really proud of this one.

The Fantasticks has now opened at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth.  A lovely show.

The sale on Alice Through the Proscenium at Lulu.com ends today - here's the Secret Code.

Don't miss 'em!  Life flies by...

Re-Viewing a Show

As a set designer, I tend to see a production several times during rehearsal - First Read-Through perhaps, then a Designer-Run and another Tech-Run or Dress Rehearsal.  I almost always see Opening Night.  However, that might be the last time I see a show; I'm usually off busy on the next show at some other theater.

But last night I got to watch In the Next Room again.  Fascinating to see how a show subtly changes over time, how actors modulate and deepen their performances...  really fascinating.

Good show.  Go see it!

Image for In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play borrowed from Kitchen Dog Theater

(A reviewer noticed the neckties hidden in the set!  First blog reader to find 'em - and to catch me - gets a free used necktie-prize!)

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.

Dry Tech

Today, being a Saturday, is Dry Tech day for In the Next Room.

This is the day lighting and sound designers work with the director and stage manager - inventing, explaining, experimenting, applying design ideas to the rhythms of the play and... well, seeing what works.  For weeks or longer, these designers have thought through the challenges of the play and assembled ideas, light fixtures, sounds, or music.  They create paperwork - plans locating lighting instruments and notes until they create a Paper Tech - basically taking the script and written charts of what sound or light ought to occur where, then talking through this with the director.  (Simple shows may not have a formal Paper Tech.).

The Dry Tech ("dry" because no actors yet - think "hard" and "soft"-ware, right?  Theater has "wet" and "dry" techs, though it sorta sounds more polite to say Dry Tech and Cue-to-Cue.  No one wants to call actors all wet.)  Where was I?  Ah!  Dry Tech is the time to take those ideas that work on paper and see if they actually work 3D in time and space.  So the lighting designer plays with colored lights and - even more important - with transitions and timing.  The sound designer's job is similar.  Then toss in practicing with the snow machines or moving scenery or whatever other technical fun has to happen on-stage.

Tomorrow will be Cue-to-Cue (Wet Tech!) with actors onstage.  All technical aspects of the show become integrated with the text: actors speak dialogue, open and close doors, walk from one pool of light to another... and spend hours waiting for the next tech moment.  The different parts of a production become a Whole.

Here are links to earlier posts on Tech:  Set Designer's Life - Tech  and an on-line site on Hell Week (AKA Tech).