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

Designer's Life -The Secret

This! is the reason artists accept serious underpayment, that inventors keep tinkering in their basements, or guys who work in commercial laundries go home to their own laundry rooms to type novels...

The  joy! when things fall into place, the plot thickens, the painting coalesces, the inspired metaphor falls from... the air?... the muse?... from who-knows-where? onto blank paper.

Frabjious Days.


Progress on my project.  (I'll tell you what it is later - don't want to jinx it.)  Meanwhile: Callooh!  Callay!

(The guy in the commercial laundry?  Stephen King in the early days.  Read his On Writing.  "Frabjous"?  Read Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.)

Time Management versus Procrastination

Stomping out other project's fires, email, dishes, other deadlines, procrastination, phone calls, chores, and just plan ol' foot-dragging (perhaps because of those crispy fire-stompin' feet?) have been BIG problems in this studio lately.

Do you ever have this problem?

There's an important, long-term project that you want - you need! - to be working on... and yet... somehow... you neeeever do.

Well, I've listened to all the excuses I can stand.

So I'm experimenting with time-management.  The new deal is: breakfast, then turn on the dreaded treadmill and tread it while reading yesterday's notes and completed pages.  1/2 hour of concentrated attention on the project.  No distractions.  Then straight from the dreaded treadmill to the computer keyboard to write for 1 hour.  NO INTERNET.  No excuses.  Until the timer buzzes.

Then I can fritter my life away at email or whatever other time-gobbling, brain-rotting activity I choose.  Well, that and deal with the business of the day and those deadlines.  But for 1 1/2 hours it's just thinking, then doing, On The Project.

This seems to be working.

It's easier than expected to concentrate on the dreaded treadmill.   (Though hard to write notes!)  

It's not much time, but I can see movement.  Knowing myself, once I get into the project I'll  start stealing extra time to devote to it and then...

Real Progress!