Close to the Bone

 Art and life sometimes come uncomfortably close.

Sitting through the Designer Run of Kitchen Dog Theater's new play, Dream Hou$e, was... 

was weird was what it was. 

The premise is that two sisters who recently lost their mother and inherited the long-time family home agree to let a reality TV show rennovate it for sale.

The IRL is that two designers who recently lost their mothers and have/had to deal with the family home watched and tried to seem all professional an' stuff.  (Basically, not weep all over the rest of the design team.)

Sometimes theater hits too close to the bone.

I have a visceral memory of watching another play called The Marriage of Betty & Boo, decades ago when I was very pregnant.  I have no remembrance of what happened in that play - except that every couple minutes (it seemed like) Betty would have another miscarraige and the actors would bounce a rubber baby doll off the stage.  That I remember. 

(The other couple, who had picked the play, apologized to the pregnant lady all the way home.)

And I know of at least one person who saw I play I designed, Natural Shocks, who told me later that it had shown her that she needed to get out of bad relationship.

It's not just safely sitting in a plush theater seat where this happens either...

On a trip to Europe once, when I happened to be in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, actually, on a free day with nothing planned... I got a call from a theater asking whether I was interested in designing The Diary of Anne Frank?

What are the odds of that?

Of course I said yes.  And, suddenly, the day had a plan: visit Anne Frank's house, or rather, the warehouse where her family hid during WWII. Which I had intended not to see.  Because wimp.

So I toured the Frank's hiding place and felt all the things I had intended not to feel...  But, because I was viewing this site professionally, I had just that little bit of distance that allowed me to be touched but not... well, blubber in public.

The other night, watching that Designer Run?  I wrapped myself in professionalism.  I took notes and, when the actresses cut too close to the bone, I sketched a random sketch.

Dream Hou$e, Kitchen Dog Theater, playing now!

A Day for Set Photos

Just found a new image of WaterTower Theatre's production of The Diary of Anne Frank that gives an wider idea of its set:

The last quiet moment of safety from Anne Frank's diary...

Set Designer's Day, the Press, and Treasure Hunting

Always nice when a day starts with a photo of one of your shows on the cover of the Dallas Morning News' weekend Guide: a close-up of actress Molly Franco, who plays Anne Frank.  (Beautifully plays.)  So far both The Diary of Anne Frank and The Frequency of Death! are getting good reviews... and with those, a few nice mentions for their sets.  (I'll take "pretty spectacular" when I can get it.)  Deeper into the Guide is a nice shot of Frequency under "Hot Show of the Week."

(You can read DMN's online review of The Diary of Anne Frank  HERE.  And HERE's their review of The Frequency of Death.)

But no time to reread for me.  I need to hop into the car to make the visit with the scenic painter on The Secrets of a Soccer Mom that was supposed to happen yesterday.  It's even colder this morning!  Poor painter.

After that, a shopping trip to that favorite source for discount fabric, The Golden d'Or (which translates as "The Golden Golden").  It's having its annual HUGE SALE.  I'll see what treasure I can dig up!

Pirate treasure painting by, I believe, Howard Pyle, public domain

Later tonight is a run-through of Collapse at Kitchen Dog, followed by a really late production meeting.  So much for Friday Date Night, huh?

Alive on Stage

Here is a pic from The Frequency of Death by Pegasus Theatre - now playing at the Eisemann Theater in Richardson - in living B & W:

The Frequency of Death, Pegasus Theatre

And don't forget to see The Diary of Anne Frank at WaterTower Theatre in Addison.  Opens tomorrow!

Speaking of Research...

In trying to explain the incredible steepness of Dutch stairs to the set builder for The Diary of Anne Frank, I found this picture online - almost the twin of apartment stairs I climbed with my heavy suitcase in Amsterdam:

Photo borrowed from the blog http://www.jstevenwood.com/amsterdam.htm 

Notice the bicycle pump?  Those risers are about 10" high.  As an American architect I can only marvel, because these stairs would never be legal back home.  Then again, the Dutch look pretty healthy!

Radio Silence

Sorry for the sparse postings... I'm in the middle of construction drawings for Seven with One Blow: or the Brave Little Kid and, as soon as that ink dries, leaping into the same type of for-the-builder drawings for my B&W, The Frequency of Death!  In the holding pattern behind those are design sketches for The Diary of Anne Frank.  Then starting Collapse for Kitchen Dog.

Plus I'm writing on The Project.

I'm beginning to develop some momentum... but also an increasing terror as I begin to realize just what a HUGE undertaking I've undertook.  The illustrations alone...  Scary.

the Golden Mean proportions (and Fibonacci series) public domain image

But I do have a juicy post coming soon about my recent jaunt to Houston, where there was Art!  Architecture! and nearby Seafood!

Set Designer's Day - Meetings

Funny how meetings seem to flock together.  Yesterday turned into a meeting day - and pretty much the whole day once I reread both scripts (Seven with One Blow or the Brave Little Kid  and The Diary of Anne Frank); added notes and questions to both scripts; doodled; and then actually, you know, met.

Public domain image

Fun meetings with both directors to talk through the plays, the acting space, and what the set needed to accomplish.  Now I'm full of bubbling ideas.

Which is a good thing, because I need to have sketches for Seven by Tuesday!

Serendipity

Dumb luck plays a big role in the design biz...

While traveling, I checked email a few times for distant crisis (one, resolved without me, phew!) and back-n-forthed with an artistic director about next season.  So there I happened to be, on my only free morning in Amsterdam, when I got an e-invitation to design Anne Frank's Diary.  What are the odds?

So I visited Anne Frank's hiding place.

Anne Frank (ware)House, Amsterdam, photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

The building was her father's business warehouse, two old Amsterdam canal houses set one behind the other.  Two upper floors and the attic of the rear building were hidden from view and therefor easy to forget - the entry to them was hidden behind a bookcase.  Eight people hid there from the Nazi roundup of Jews for about two years.  Until betrayed.

The site is now a historical museum - very well and sensitively done.

I love the Diary which Anne Frank wrote while in hiding but hadn't planned to visit her hiding place...  I didn't want to know too accurately what it was like or to... well... sniffle in public.  Going there as a designer, however, gave me a distance, a more analytical place to stand, which made it easier. The site is very moving.

It must have felt like living in a submarine, I think, with its tight, dark, airless quarters and its constant presence of too many other people.  Claustrophobic.

One unexpected realization, for me, is that while Anne's and the other many many deaths of the Holocaust remain a tragedy of unimaginable size - impossible to realize - by the time I exited the building, the publication of Anne Frank's diary feels like a small victory.  One Anne would appreciate.

This play feels daunting...  It needs to be done well.