It's Been THAT Long?

I've been... busy?

Building the Tower of Babel 

Sorry.  It really has been  a crazy busy year so far - 5 shows of my own (the last one opening next week) and 3 shows and apprentices to cheer on.  Plus, y'know, life stuff.

But I break my radio silence to share this very good video on Environmental Design.   A phrase developed in game and theme park design, but very much what good theater set design and film production design also do.  Enjoy!  (And more posts more often coming soon.)

Trope Talk: Environmental Design

 

 

Minecraft Theater Design Class!

 In crazy news: Stage West Theatre and I are offering a Minecraft based scenic design class!

Mining (Theater) Craft

Build a theater!  Design and build scenery!  In the blocky world of Minecraft enjoy all the fun and drama of IRL theater design: the joy of group effort and the satisfaction of individual creativity.  Play with 3 dimensional volume, levels, lights, color, and explore the possibilities of lava in performance... wait... what? 

A class for pre-teens and teens. You’ll need access to Minecraft Java Version (PC based) and just enough experience to place blocks (easy!) and to walk without falling in lava (easy! because in “Creative” mode you can fly).  You’ll need Discord for in-game conversation and messaging.  Completely online, this class will meet Thursdays 7-9, with access to StageWestWorld between times to keep on building.

Professional architect, award-winning set designer, and let’s-not-say-obsessed Minecraft builder, Clare Floyd DeVries is the guide as you master this sandbox game, mining its potential for theatrical creativity.  You'll need access to Minecraft Java version (PC based) and just enough experience to place blocks (easy!) and to walk without falling into lava (easy because in "Creative" mode you can fly!).  You'll need Discord for in-game conversation and messaging.

Learn more HERE at Stage West Education

Legendary Scenic Designer Eugene Lee

A great interview with the legendary designer Eugene Lee... who's been designing sets for Saturday Night Live since it started in 1975!

Oh, and little shows like Wicked and Sweeney Todd for Broadway.

On Vox HERE.

Sounds like the pace of live TV would kill me...

Realized and Un-Realized

Sometimes a design gets built.  Sometimes it gets built and its a hell o' work and everyone deserves a medal!  And sometimes it never happens.

I've been digging through files of old drawings today and found a few things...

In the Hell o' Work file I found this actual medal that I created for the hard working set build team:

It was a ton of work - including lugging a ton of books - and, as it was supposed to be a Pritzker Prize winning architect's Manhattan penthouse, the construction had to be exquisite.  (More on that show with a photo HERE.)  Anyway, the team was incredible!

I also found a full design for a show that never was.  Never mind the particular play or theater (getting rights can be complicated), here's the scenery that never got built... an upstage wall that gradually stripped away, sliding panels that slipped away to reveal, by the end, the raw truth, red in tooth and claw.

Here's the plan:

And here's the progression:

Would have been interesting.  Too bad it never happened...

Haircuts for Radio and Other Weird Things

It's been a busy month or two.

At the moment I'm set dressing Wait Until Dark for Stage West and construction is starting on The Winter's Tale for Trinity Shakespeare, while I'm starting sketches for Circle's Don't Talk to the Actors.

Wait Until Dark, Stage West, design by Clare Floyd DeVries

But what was that about haircuts?

Yesterday a videographer for our local public radio station, KERA, followed me around the stage at Stage West, watching me safety-pin up giant (16' long!) B&W photocopies of the outside-the-basement-window view.  When this got boring (set designer with nice hair cut climbs ladder again!), the TD took us on an Alice's rabbit hole tour through the darkened corners of the theater.  We looked at ancient steel safes and old sofas up nifty counter-weighted folding attic stairs... Fun!  Explore the Theater could make a great virtual reality game.

I think the talk got more interesting too as the TD and I back-n-forthed over scenic problems.

Why all this videoed ridiculousness?

Well, KERA's Art & Seek has gotten a grant to document an artist a week for a year in a how-the-work-happens sort of thing.  As I understand it, there'll be a little bit on the radio and more (like vid) on the website.  Cool idea, huh?

Anyway, 52 weeks, 52 artists... starting, oddly, with me.

So that's weird.  On Monday they're coming by my studio to interview me.  (I'll be vacuuming till then.)  

More weirdness was my battle with the big rendering for the big big backdrop for The Winter's Tale.  I mean, I can design and I can draw... but painting... meh.  So I struggled with it for hours trying to meet the deadline - to the point where, when family arrived, I had to ask 'em whether the result was terrible or okay.  I couldn't tell.  (The consensus was "use it.")

Backdrop for The Winter's Tale, Trinity Shakespeare - design by Clare Floyd DeVries

So there I was yesterday, presenting this alleged artwork to a real painter - the scenic artist - with, as it happened, another very good scenic designer / painter whose opinion I respect looking over my shoulder.  

All he said was, "Colored pencil?"

"Watercolor pencil and colored pencil," I answered.  "But don't look at the technique, just the color."

Actually, that scene shop is absolutely stuffed with good painters who will, naturally, look at my, you should forgive the expression, "technique."  

I have now vowed to take an official watercolor class.

Greening the Stage

Among the kind sponsors of the Live Design Scenic Masterclass (thanks Rose Brand!) was the Broadway Green Alliance.

They have a worthy goal - to make theater less ecologically wasteful.  Green the Stage!

Charm at Kitchen Dog Theater - I couldn't resist using this "green" stage.

Here are some suggestions they made to us as set designers:

1) Run a greener studio: use recycled paper, print on both sides, use inks with less packing materials, and, when possible, view information on a screen and not print it at all.  When building models, up-cycle packing cardboard, choose cardboard instead of foam-core board or pulp-board instead of illustration board.  Use plain ol' white glue instead of fancy sprays and other chemical compounds.  Recycle used paper and cardboard - even old models when you can.

ADDENDUM:  I'd add in general good-green-housekeeping stuff: use LED or fluorescent lighting instead of incandescent; keep your thermostat setting sane; cut back on chemical cleaners and insect sprays etc.; recycle plastic and metal trash too; waste less water; all the good stuff, right?

2) Design green: plan using recycled and upcycled materials in your sets.  Design around material sizes (like 4' x 8' plywood) so there's less cutting and waste.  Research materials - what's the greenest choice?  Many factors come into "greenness", like shipping distance and sustainable sourcing etc., so pace yourself; research as you have time rather than pushing to reform your practice overnight.  Check places like Craig's List for what you need.  

(If you happen to be in the NYC area, they suggest shopping at Build-It-Green, Film Biz Recycling, or Materials-For-The Arts. Around the DFW area, Habitat for Humanity Restores sell "excess" building products.  And building salvage places, of course.)

3) Build green:  use stock pieces and save things from this set for the next one.  Use that recycled and upcycled material!  (As much as possible, I suggest encouraging sustainable paints and building methods.)

4)  Green-cycle old sets!  Don't just trash it - give it away or give the broken-down materials away. Poorer theaters would be glad of a lot of your stuff.  Recycle what can be recycled.  

5)  Talk green.  Reach out to others about sustainable theater.  Let's make "green" the new standard practice!  Join Broadway Green Alliance.

Much of this we (in those poorer theaters) are already doing for reasons of, um, poverty, but it's a good idea to think through your usual practices.  (My studio needs to recycle more paper.)  See where you can be a better global-green steward... right, citizen?

Public domain image

Well, that's today's news.  Last thought...

"We do not get the news from poetry

yet people die everyday for lack of what is found there."

William Carlos Williams

(Thanks to poet John Siddique for this quote.)

Minimalism

Sometimes the best set is the least.  The simplest.

Simple perfection.

That's all.

A friend of mine recently designed Hamlet for an incredibly successful children's production.  Both the budget and space were modest and fine materials and carpentry skills limited.  Generally, if a designer is going to pull off a minimalist style then what IS on stage has to be exquisite.  Perfect.  But here (as often is the case) perfection was kinda hard to come by.  Still, theater has its tricks:  smooth out lumpy carpentry by stretching fabric over it.  If you still can't get a perfectly smooth wall? then texture/spatter the surface so you can't tell it's not perfect.  Fool the eye.

Whatever the clunky reality of the build, what the audience saw was clean, simple, geometry.

Hamlet at Funhouse Theatre and Film, set design by Joseph Cummings - copyrighted

I love the bold simplicity of this world.

The other remarkable thing about this photo is the use of projections - integral to this production.  Here the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet's Father is enriched by this classic illustration.  (Sorry I don't know the artist's name.)  It was this image, in fact, that was the inspiration for the whole set design.

Below, you see a similar use of Millet's iconic Ophelia to illustrate her off-stage fate.

Hamlet at Funhouse Theatre and Film, set design by Joseph Cummings - copyrighted

Hamlet at Funhouse Theatre and Film, set model by Joseph Cummings - copyrighted

The model gives a better idea of the design: sliding panels plus two rolling raked platforms.  Clever.  Simple.

You can see more of Joseph's work HERE.

Coffee Klatch

Every so often it's really nice to get together with colleagues.

Today it was coffee at the main Half Price Books coffee shop with a couple other set design enthusiasts.  Between us we had a variety of design backgrounds and experience levels - stage, architecture, interior design, graphics, student, professional, part-time, and full-time.

Some of the stories were pretty funny.

It's a great way to shop talk, swap ideas and helpful hints, complain to someone who'll understand, and just generally kick our (paint-y) shoes off.  The best and most hilarious story had to be cleaning-up-a-spilled-gallon-of-paint-ten-minutes-before-the-audience-is-seated.*

Plus I got some good technical suggestions for pulling off my next design.

My suggestion for you, Dear Reader?  Find some friendly colleagues you can coffee klatch with.

I've used this image before... pretty sure it's public domain.

*  Hint: it takes 2 pieces of 2x4 and a bucket of saw dust.