The last few days have been long, tiring ones, trying to get the set for Uptown Players' production of Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike ready in time for photos last night.
I've been popping up and down in the lift like a demented Jack-in-the Box, painting stone walls, then the carpenters popped up and down in the same lift (plus ladders) raising a faux slate roof over an (also faux) breezeway and plopping my weather-vane in place (an even more faux thing, there being neither breeze nor weather inside the theater... and that's just great, thank you, because we've had plenty of freezing weather outside it lately).
Designer, set dresser, TD, carpenters... The whole gang has been really sweating it (despite the cold), racing against the deadline. This show has a lot of dressing what with its interior furnishings and decoration and its exterior lawn etc.
So. Busy.
Then yesterday, just as we were starting to see the end of our labors in sight, just as we were starting to think, "We're gonna make it, we're gonna make it, almoooost made it..." a nervous management came to tell us that icy weather meant that photos had to be postponed until today.
He expected us to be mad - instead we immediately and gratefully sat down to rest.
Now, after an evening with my feet up and a good night's sleep, I'll just saunter back into the theater today to add little details, some wood grain on the stairs, a few orange flowers to balance out stage right, that kind of thing. As far as I'm concerned, the perfect project is one where, once you think you're done, you get the gift of a little extra time to sit and to stare, to evaluate, then to make those few small tweaks that really finish the design.
This time it's orange flowers.
Image courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net
