Tchotskies

 A few actor colleagues talking over old shows online remembered the set  I designed for I'll Pray For You So Hard which was a densely lived in NYC kitchen.  

Its admirable carpenter (and ditto actor) Drew Wall posted this continuity photo for when the set had to relocate.

I'll Pray For You So Hard by Kitchen Dog Theater - photo by Drew Wall

(This difficult relocation was due to Fire Marshall issues.  Dallas stages were getting raided round about then for permitting issues.  This was just after the city-wide raids for fire exit issues at art galleries and months after the exceeding-occupancy raids on party rental spaces that left weeping 15 year old girls watching their quinceaneras kicked out...  I'm all for fire safety!  But there was something going on just then politically I suspect.)

Back to the tchotskies...

The official term is "set dressing" and, for certain shows, it can be the heart of the design.  For this show it was all about convincing the audience that this space was real, real lived-in, and deteriorating under the pressure... pretty much a metaphor for the whole father-daughter relationship onstage.

(This deterioration thankfully allowed me to disguise the corner of the set where I botched the wallpaper as wrinkled due to a "water leak," which ruse I amplified by dripping dirty paint water and, if I remember right, some cold Starbucks that was just sitting around.)

Other sets, other sorts of set dressing - whether bare, or just ordinary, or hoarder-level, as in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, for which I special ordered Tatos potato crisps... just to scatter the empty packages around.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Kitchen Dog Theater 

In case you're wondering, I can do sparely dressed too...

Radiant Vermin, also at Kitchen Dog Theater

"Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" AND Stone

Phew!

Always a relief when a show opens successfully.  Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a script I really really like - given a terrific production by Uptown Players with an amazing cast.  Well worth seeing.  So get your ticket fast.

I kinda like the set.  (I might be partial, of course.)  So, the highlight of the show for me?  The coolo fake stone!

Well , what did you expect?  Would the set designer quote the witty lines of the clever script by Christopher Durang, point out the superior thespian-osity (this is a great cast), or marvel at the (well-directed) slick physical comedy?  No, no, no, be realistic.  The set designer would applaud the lovely faux stone carving by Dennis Canright - using acetone on expanded polystyrene sheets!

(That and give thanks for the much-appreciated set dressing by Kevin Brown and the lovely lighting by Jason Foster.  Thanks to the whole set crew for all their hard work.  What troopers!)

Back to the star of the show, that coolo stone...  Here's how you too can have faux stone on your own set.

Photo courtesy of Uptown Players' production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike 

Step one: carve the stone.

Dennis (and many other carpenters) prefer to paint acetone on expanded polystyrene.  Wherever the paintbrush applies acetone, the foam is eaten away - deeper if applied horizontally, shallower if applied vertically.  Either way you get a wonderful roughness and random quality that feels like natural stone. You paint on the mortar lines and spatter random stone pits.  Works great!  But I personally prefer to carve the mortar joint lines with a snap-blade knife because I hate the acetone fumes... a technique that gives a more "chiseled" looking stone, which can be nice.  Combining the techniques would be aces.

Step two:  Base paint.  Dennis and/or his carpenters sprayed the foam panels with a medium-light, cool gray.  I followed after and gently rolled the stone with a warmer putty-gray, in a deliberately blotchy way.

(At this point, naturally, the rest of the production team worried that this ugliness would be the final "look," but "Take heart!" I told them (or something like that)  "Lo!  There are many paint steps yet to come!")

 

Faux stone photo by me - given to public domain.  This is taken under work-lights 

not the more flattering theatrical lighting, so make allowances please!

Step three:  At this point the fake stone sheets were attached to the frame of the on-stage "house," so I spent a whole day bobbing up and down in the lift detailing individual stones.  For this show I used four colors of latex paint: black, a chocolaty brown, a rust, and a pale gray/almost white, arranged in that order - dark to light - at my feet in the lift's bucket, plus a bucket of water.  With a sash brush (I like the angled edge) I mostly dry-brushed on remarkably little color. 

Close-up detail of faux stone, given to public domain.

You can see how nicely the rough texture of the foam takes the dry color.

Now here's a photo of the non-acetone, knife-cut style of fake stone to give you an idea of its more chiseled look.  Muuuuch slower though.

Close-up of stone on The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Kitchen Dog Theater, 

also public domain photo

The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Kitchen Dog Theater

If you're curious, you can read more about the Beauty Queen stone (and the show) on my "Set Questions Answered" Squidoo page  HERE.

I Wish...

...That I could show you cool photos of my painted model for The Lucky Chance (Echo at the Bath House comin' soon!).  But that would be premature.  Gotta buy a ticket, right?

But I can show a photo of its design-opposite: the recent The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

Where Beauty Queen is detailed, realistic, and drably gunge-colored, Lucky Chance will be simple, abstracted, and a Riot of '60s Color!

The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Kitchen Dog Theater - finished set.

Kind of interesting to compare this fully set-dressed version (under stage lights) with the progress pics.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Kitchen Dog Theater - under construction

Or the original sketch:

The Beauty Queen of Leenane - design sketch 

Amazing what a little (ha!) scenic painting and set dressing can do isn't it?

(See the '60s colors HERE.)

Last Chance! The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Okay all you procrastinators...  The Beauty Queen of Leenane ends its acclaimed run Saturday.

So get yer tickets!  HERE.

Photo by Matt Mrozeck courtesy of  Kitchen Dog Theater

Holiday Hiatus

What with Thanksgiving and this and that, it's been hard to even get to my computer during the last week, much less to write anything.  I hope you all, Dear Readers, had a wonderful Day of Thanks.

(This is one of my top favorite holidays - so purely family, friends, and food.  A very happy Thanksgiving here, this year.)

So I've been busy outside the theater - here's the Recap:

FILMS: Skyfall, the latest Bond... and a very good one.  I loved M, Q, the actually frightening villain, and have now Officially Designated Daniel Craig as best Bond ever.

MUSEUMS:  The traveling exhibit of art from the Phillips Collection now at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth is full of  goodies - wonderful art - that and the Kimbell's permanent collection (of which I've written before HERE) are well worth the drive.  Construction on Renzo Piano's addition to Louis Kahn's building is advancing: right now the poured concrete walls have tidy little plastic pup-tents on top to keep rain off of them.  There are models and an interesting film in the Kimbell's lobby about these buildings.  * Extra bonus: visit the KAWS sculpture outside the Modern Art Museum... a sort of giant, cartoon, heart-breaking, tragicomic figure that just appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as a giant balloon.

(Existential Angst in the Holidays?  That is traditional for many.)

A compare-n-contrast moment with the happy Mickey Mouse who followed him certainly.

KAWS Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float - believed public domain

While in Fort Worth, don't forget to order the enchilada plate at Joe T. Garcia's .  And, if the fall weather and leaves remain as beautiful as today's, consider eating on Joe T.'s patio.  Or visit the Fort Worth Arboretum - its Japanese Garden is lovely now.

In Dallas, the new Perot Science and Natural History Museum opens soon.  It's designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne.  It looks fantastic so far - I'm looking forward to visiting.  HERE's the Dallas Morning News article.  I looked at it again while exploring...

PARKS:  I finally! got to walk through the new Bridge Park (Klyde Warren Park), built over Woodall Rogers Freeway, connecting the Dallas Arts District with Uptown.   I liked its small, even domestic, scale and variety of areas.  Cool playground.  Oddly, there seems no design emphasis on the "bridge" part of the park's function; everything seems oriented lengthwise, ignoring the symbolically important across-the-park-n-across-parts-'o-town-ness that is its reason for being.  Puzzling.  But there were plenty of people enjoying the park on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The street cars serving it were standing room only.  Maybe it's a hit!  More park info HERE.

THEATER:  Don't forget to buy tickets to Kitchen Dog's (and my own!) The Beauty Queen of Leenane which is gathering rave reviews.  To totally rip off the best quip about it: "Come see the family in Beauty Queen... then love your own family so much better!"  This is truly a holiday special.

Compare and Contrast, kiddies, Compare and Contrast.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Get yer tickets HERE!

Kitchen Dog Theater's production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane is getting rave reviews.  Check 'em out: The Dallas Morning News and PegasusNews.

Tickets are sellin' fast...

And here's another rave at EdgeDallas.

This n' That

A This n' That sort of set designer's day:

Coffee with a colleague, talkin' set design - his, mine, every show we've seen lately's, and the scenery for the Andrew Lloyd Weber sequel Love Never Dies on DVD.  Lots of fun.  Plus a demonstration of the very cool Bamboo drawing tablet.  I think I know now what I want for Christmas.  (Okay, and for birthday and Presidents' Day and...)

After that, I stickem-ed the last of the tacky (in every possible sense!) floor tiles to the stage for The Beauty Queen of Leenane.  Other brave and sticky volunteers started the job Sunday - until we ran out of tiles.  We're protecting the actual stage floor with an intervening layer of tar paper, stapled down, in hopes of easy removal.  But the sticking down is the stickiest thing you can imagine!  Sticky hands, sticky hair, sticky to the paper backing, sticky to the floor, to everything!  Wash-up includes slathering hands with WD40, then lots of soap and water.  Repeat.  Maybe a couple times.

Sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries, copyright, right?

This sketch was made during the designers' run the other night.  

I've started sketching during runs like this; it took me a while to figure out why exactly.  I think it's partly to document progress and partly a sort of shyness.  In the brightly lit theater under house lights and in the sparse audience of a designers' run (4-5 people!) it lets me feel less on-display myself and gives me a little distance from the show (like adjusting the volume).  Because a play can be too powerful for comfort sometimes, undiluted by the rest of the audience and unprotected by the darkness of the auditorium.  

At least for me.  

But then, I never sit in the front row for a show either, for similar reasons.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane - even under house lights - is a powerful play.

You can see my earlier sketch of what this set will (I hope) eventually look like HERE and the latest progress photo (and the tacky tile!) right here:

The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Kitchen Dog Theater, week 2 progress - photo by Mike Wang

Progress Pic

Here's the set for The Beauty Queen of Leenane as of 4:30 yesterday.  I'm off in a few minutes for today's stint, after a morning of printing out Irish grocery store-brand canned goods.

(I know, I know, but just wait till it's finished: the magic is yet to come.)

Photo courtesy of Mike Wang 

Kitchen Dog Live!

For all (3) of you who are desperately following the progress of Kitchen Dog Theater's production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, HERE is a link to their Facebook page where there's bloggy-type up-dating going on.

ADDENDUM: A brief set update HERE.

Set Designer's Busy Weekend

This past weekend was chock full o' artsy goodness.

Saturday morning was start of the Build for The Beauty Queen of Leenane.  I showed up to help place walls.  Sure, a drawing shows that (the Plan and it's important), but because this set is trying to look like the kind of ad hoc, by-golly-this'd-work-here rural cottage that uses old bed springs as a fence and has a dead tractor in its front yard, we're going with an ad hoc, by-golly method of building too.  Drag in stuff, stare at it, then say, "By-golly..."

Fun!  But the designer had better be on hand to stare.

Saturday night was the opening of Ghost Writer at Circle Theatre, so that afternoon was spent in Fort Worth, visiting museums and eating waaaay too many enchiladas at Joe T. Garcia's.

There are two terrific art shows:

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art has an exhibit from the Phillips Collection "To See as Artists See."  Amazing!  One of those exhibits like a good cocktail party: you keep recognizing faces across the room and say, "I can't believe it! You're...  I know you!"  Many famous images.  The Amon Carter's own collection is interesting too.  They made their reputation on Western art, but have a lot more, including a serious photography collection.

Next door is the show "The Kimbell at 40."  Superb pieces, arranged in order of acquisition, which is not the most visual display logic.  

You can see more of the ongoing construction of the Kimbell's addition as it grows taller than its construction fence.  (There's a good over-look from the plaza of the Amon Carter.)  Inside the Kimbell are models and a video about the Kahn and Piano buildings.

That evening (after enchiladas!) came the play: Ghost Writer went very well.  I like this script.  It's subtle with a lot of emotion bubbling underneath.  Beautifully acted.

Sunday was more construction at Kitchen Dog.  My personal highlight had to be when I helped collect a vintage refrigerator for the set: a gorgeous Fall afternoon, a few quiet blocks of tree-lined streets, where the very first yellow leaves were beginning to fall, and... I got to ride in the back of a pickup truck!

I'm in theater for the thrills.

Believed public domain images messed with

Line Drawing

I love color.  And color is a rather important aspect of a theater set.  So I usually add colored pencil to my ink sketches to indicate material colors and even to suggest lighting effects.  (An example HERE.)

But for my meeting with the director the other day... well, I ran out of time.  The ink was still wet when I laid my sketch on the restaurant table.  (One-on-one theater meetings with directors are often at restaurants: if your sketch isn't wet with ink as you present it, it's often wet with iced tea before you finish.)

My black & white sketch got more response than I expected when I showed it then and, later, to others.

So I guess it'll stay uncolored.

Sometimes I forget how strong pure line drawings can be.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Kitchen Dog Theater, design sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries C

This is ink pen - Staedtler Pigment Liners in 0.3 and 0.1 sizes - on that ol' faithful, yellow trace.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane isn't really a color kinda set anyway.

(An earlier post on yellow tracing paper and drawing is down the page or  HERE.)