February Rush

 Well THAT month rushed by!

Since the New Year, two shows (and a wicked lingering cough)...

Now on stage:  Pompeii!! at Kitchen Dog Theater in our new home!

For this clever and darkly funny musical - written by members of the Company - the set design is a blend of the original 2018 production by David Walsh and new bits by myself... like this crazy Wheel of Misfortune.

And Arsenic and Old Lace at Pocket Sandwich Theatre

Both good and funny shows!  (Pompeii!! ends Sunday).

Busy Fall Behind, Busy Winter and Spring Ahead

 It seems like I've had time for everything but blogging!

This Fall it was finally my chance to design The Phantom of the Opera.  A melodrama version for Pocket Sandwich Theatre.  Popcorn was thrown!

This was a chance to pull out a few foam carvings etc. made for earlier shows, like the grand Water God (8'-0" long) originally designed, years ago, for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare Dallas.  Here he's to be seen hiding in the lights... just as shy as the Phantom himself.

Designing and building the Phantom's organ was the most fun.  It was mostly of pool noodles for this full-foam show, but incorporated a real keyboard, and its frame was mostly parts of a vantage baby crib.  In this horror-drenched (ha!) tale, the most fearsome sight may have been the stagehands' rear view of this organ case, a 1950's Scary Bunny!

But the BIG deal this Fall was finishing a fantasy novel!

It's a long story...  A friend and I started collaborating on a short story... that got out of hand.  Huge fun!  More news on that story later, when it's closer to public release.  Suffice, for now, to say that writing, editing, revising, illustrating, and designing a cover for this epic took a whiiiile.

What else is Up-Coming?

Theatrically there are four shows: the triumphant opening of Kitchen Dog Theater's new home with the critically acclaimed and member-created show Pompeii!!  Then Arsenic and Old Lace and Home, I'm Honey at Pocket (plus Werewolf of London in the Fall) and then the third and last installment of Stage West's Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Ghost Machine.

Did I Promise to Post More Often?

 Hahahaha!

A linocut print of the city of Ptolith, in Aenoriia - art by Clare Floyd DeVries, 

   world by AstrophagyMC

I have been really busy though this Fall; traveling, a little theater, and writing on a long-form fiction project related to those imaginary Minecraft cities I've been helping build for so long.

Now I'm illustrating that and discovering the fun of linocut printing!  I'm currently pretty inky myself and my house is even more filled with little teeny tiny slivers of linoleum... everywhere.  They stick to bathtubs BTW.  

(Now I bury you in examples to make up for so few posts.  Brace yourself!)

I love that these crazy prints combine my architecture, Minecraft, D&D, writing, and art.

Theater?  Less busy, because of traveling.  But my set for the Phantom of the Opera is onstage at Pocket Sandwich Theatre in Carrollton right now.  A fun melodrama!  Go see it and throw some popcorn.

The Phantom of the Opera melodrama, Pocket Sandwich Theatre

What's Up?

                                        

 First off, I got to see Kitchen Dog Theater's production of The Grown-Ups last night at Samuel Grand Park.  Really liked it!  Very topical.  Read more about it HERE.

Second, I've been off traveling to California and back, but now that I AM back, theater is going full steam ahead: I'm reprising last year's Sherlock set for Stage West's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes and the Fallen Souffle and designing a set at Pocket Sandwich Theatre for the farce, Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Here are a few pics of Sherlock last year - this year will see only modest changes, mostly to furnishings or set dressing... plus adding a chandelier that I need to find!

Getting busy!

Happy Moments

 

I got to design and build an Ent-ish tree!

For Pocket Sandwich Theatre's Herbbits, Wizards & Borks, Oh My!

Where Did the Spring Go?

Poof!

That's where my Spring went.  Apparently.  

I do know I've been pretty busy.  I've been meeting monthly with my set design students at Stage West (earlier post on our design charrette  HERE).  They give their end-of-program design presentations this Sunday!  Three very motivated and hard-working college students... with schedule's even more crazy than mine.

I've also been designing several shows.  First - and still running - the cartoon-hero comedy Captain Phantasm versus the Nefarious Doctor Noir at Pocket Sandwich Theatre.  Lots of fun and flying popcorn!

Here is its basic set - an all-purpose vintage urban setting with an overlook of the city's dam and its nefariously threatened water supply!  The next sketches show the Scientist's Lab and the Villain's Lair AKA the Pink Pussycat Club.  (The pussycat sign lights up and blinks.)

But wait!  - another show opens tonight!  Echo Theatre's production of Lauren Gunderson's  Natural Shocks.  

This one-woman play is set in the character's basement and its sketches I made at the speed of the tornado she's hiding from...

I kind of like the immediacy of these sketches:

Echo Theatre production of Natural Shocks - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

The scheduling is interesting for this - first this play and then their next,  I and You, also by Gunderson, follow each other with only a week between them.  So parts of the set are shared, basically the upstage wall with its door.  (I'll explain that set in another blog post.)  

So tonight Echo's first show opens and tomorrow their second one gets into gear to replace it in a week.  Yikes.

Also shifting into gear is the play The Last Truck Stop by Crystal Jackson at Kitchen Dog Theater, opening June 8th.

So busy.  And staying busy through June at least. 

Show Photos

I seldom get really good show photos (largely because I am a terrible photographer). 

But here are some lovely images taken by Sally Jinks of my recent show - written by Brad McEntire and produced at Tarrant College SE - Que sera, Giant Monster.

Que Sera, Giant Monster - Tarrant College SE - photos by Sally Jinks

Next up, tonight's Opening of Ebenezer Scrooge at Pocket Sandwich Theatre!