A Week in the Life

This week may not be exactly typical, but it's not uncommon either.  A set designer's schedule can go something like this:


Weekend - spend some time preparing for the coming week by finishing one set of construction drawings and starting the next.  Also pulling portfolio photos of work for an up-coming introduction/audition/meeting thingie.

Monday - up at 6:30 a.m.  Breakfast.  Scan and email one (small) set of construction drawings for one show.  (Application Pending at Circle Theater.)  Pull clothes (and even iron!) for the interview.  Have the interview.  Seems to go okay... maybe
I'll get the new show?  While wondering that, finish construction drawings then make a bunch of copies of those other drawings and design sketches for the other show you know you do have.  (Ironbound at Kitchen Dog Theater.)  Grab something out of the refrigerator at random to gobble while doing email one handed, then rush to the first read of Ironbound.
  
A fascinating reading!   Great cast.   Also got to meet for the first time in a while several favorite people from other shows. Snacks and chit-chattery very pleasant.  Production meeting afterwards.  (Have to be shushed at one point.  Scenic talk is too engrossing!)  

Sketchbook doodle during the Ironbound first read-thru

My sketchbook is really a Day Book, where I record whatever I'm 

thinking, reading, or researching about, plus meeting notes and

my earliest design sketches... and occasional grocery lists.

Home at 11:00 p.m.  Eat a sandwich in the bath because that refrigerator grab and snack at the Read-Thru weren't quite enough.  Also a drink.  Nothing better than a hot bath and a cold drink.  And a book.

Tuesday - sleep a little late - 7:30.  Create a model for yet another show so that theater's board of directors can approve the design.  (Sister Act at Mainstage Irving - Las Colinas.)  This involves making yet many more copies of yet more design sketches.  I'm getting to know the owner of the local copy place!  Hopefully I'll also find time to scan and send a director copies of an old 1950s version of "The Story of the Little Red Hen."  (Which makes more sense than it sounds like it would.  Really.)  I have a head start on model building in that I had the forethought to get supplies like foamcore board last week.  

Dinner at home with family, woohoo!  Wonder what I'll cook?

Here's an example of early design sketches - these are trying to

figure out how to make a few wagons (3) multi-task as about

87 different locations in Sister Act.  It is SO HANDY to have a 

sketchbook always on hand.  I buy my purses sized to hold one.

Wednesday - will be, in the evening, the production meeting that goes with that model.  Earlier comes the all-important lunch seminar on the American Disabilities Act which I need as continuing education credit to keep my architectural license current.  Lotso note taking!  

(My sketchbook is interesting lately: notes and sketches on several shows; ditto from my jury duty... sad sketches; ditto on an imaginary planet I'm designing just for fun; plus nice serious architectural ADA notes to balance out the frivolities.)

Thursday - a coffee-klatch with a fellow designer to look forward to.  

Friday - By now I need to have answered all the questions generated by my flurry of drawings - which may mean MORE drawings! - and have every show sorta settled for the weekend.  

Will I make it?

Just a Quick Up-Date

Busy, busy here.

I'm in the process of building Venus in Fur at Circle Theatre (handing over paint and oak samples, looking for chaise lounges, set dressing tomorrow); of mailing construction drawings to California for The Great American Trailer Park Musical (still green paint on my hand from that rendering); of creating construction drawings for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (revised the plan at last night's meeting); and misc. errands like returning a chandelier ( from Too Many Cooks) to Kitchen Dog (and getting a script for Gideon's Knot).  Today's misc. errand is a lunch seminar for architectural continuing ed. credit.

Phew!  Just reading all that tires me out.

But it's all good fun: some excellent scripts and I get the added bonus of working with some particular friends and talents on several of them.

And in my spare time, I've been reading The Game of Thrones series (deep into book four) and seeing a few movies.  Her is very good - romantic, yes, but mostly thoughtful about the essential loneliness that is the human condition.  American Hustle is a fun trip to the 80s.  The Hobbit - love The Hobbit.

Gotta run!  Coffee meeting I almost forgot!

I know, I know...

No posts lately!

But I know you'll understand when I tell you that I've been chained to my board (well, to my car, to my theaters...) because I've been working on three shows since I returned from that road trip - one now half way through its run, two others about to open.  Insanity!

Public domain image of the Mad Hatter

Theatrical Sleep Cycle

Compared to actors (poor sleep-deprived wretches) set designers have it easy.  But there are days when your bed can feel a looong waaay off...

Yesterday I was up at 6:30 a.m. - normal around here.  I was busy all morning, but my theatrical day didn't start until 3:00 p.m. when I wedged my faithful car ("The Scenic Ride," I call her) chock-o-block full of kitchen cabinets, borrowed from another theater, and drove them to the theater at the Mckinney Avenue Contemporary.  Time off for lunch/dinner; rehearsal with a run-thru starting at 6:30, ending at 11:30pm; drive home; read to wind-down; bed at 12:30 a.m.

Not bad if I hadn't needed to be up this morning at 5:30 a.m.

Eek!

Luckily, this was just a one-off schedule, but this can go on for weeks, especially if you're overlapping a few shows.  When you get kinda sleepy.

The tricky part for set designers is that builders - carpenters and painters - are Day People, needing to work day-hours when they have actor-free access to the set, but directors are Night People, needing to work evenings with access to actors (who have day jobs), and it's most convenient for directors and stage managers and even other designers (usually with day jobs too) to meet right after rehearsal when production issues are freshest.

Set Designers are the sleepy interface between these Day and Night groups.

Public domain images by Van Gogh, messed with

The Arts and the Holidays

I'm suffering under a persistent conviction that today is Tuesday.  Not Monday.  This is mostly because I worked much of the weekend.

The arts - certainly theater - tend to ignore the idea of taking the weekend off.  In fact, the weekend is considered prime work time exactly because folks with day jobs can finally get a whole day (or two) free to work on their art!

So for me this weekend was Mother's Day, which was nice, and also family celebration of a graduation, also very nice, but the bulk of it was work: hauling furniture for one show; building/painting that show; answering set questions; sketching answers to set questions; sketching another variation on another show and scanning and sending that; meeting on yet another show; meeting on still another show; and watching a designer run of that show.

This work-whenever-you-can schedule can wreck havoc with holidays, family and social life, and even rest breaks for your own health if you aren't careful.  It's too easy to lose track of time.

But tomorrow I know will be Tuesday.

Because that's Garbage Day... the only fixed temporal point in my week!

Public domain photo 

Lull? Not So Much

The speed of this set designer's life is picking up again:

Today there's an interview with an almost-new client.  I worked with them years ago for basically what change they could find under the sofa cushions (plus tasty cookies), but this time it's all a little better funded and at a new address.  Meanwhile, I've learned that the builder for another set will no longer be building - there's going to be a scramble to see how that gets done.  Waiting on a director's phone call on a third show (I better nudge 'em, that deadline is approaching).  A forth show has had a sad delay, but now a production meeting date is set... for which I need to get a sketch in gear.  Oh!  And I've accepted the offer of a favorite show in - wait for it - Prague!  Cool, huh?  You'll be hearing more about these shows: Mistakes Were Made; Boeing, Boeing; Ruth; Sweeney Todd; and the Dallas Theater Center's Summer Stage program.

Plus, of course, I've been figuring out income taxes.  If you have your own business, taxes get, um, annoying.  All those receipts!  Mileage!  (Man! I drive a lot of miles to theaters.)  Calculating the exact square footage of the home studio versus the entire home in order to prorate the costs of electricity etc. as business versus personal costs...  Taxes are very annoying.  Especially if you replaced a car this year, as I had to.  (Saga of Scenic Rides 1 & 2 HERE and, for those of you who find other people's struggles with taxes as funny as I do, here are last year's rants: Tax Rant #1, #2, and #3.)

That explains why there was no post yesterday: I was too annoyed!

Sigh.

Van Gogh's Almond Blossums, believed public domain image

But it's Spring!  Easter almost.  I'm feeling better - family and friends are well.  The taxes look like they'll turn out okay.  And the recent tornadoes that ripped through DFW spared my neighborhood.  So life's good.

So Much Going On

Starting the New Year with a rush.

The Frequency of Death opened successfully on New Year's Eve.  The audience enjoyed it.  The B&W looked terrific (the set seemed to work and was finished, always a nice thing).  The addition of jazz singer Simone, preshow and before Act II, was wonderful!  "Stormy Weather" and "My Funny Valentine" sounded terrific and set the period mood.  Go see it!  Pegasus Theatre.

Today is Tech for The Diary of Anne Frank.  That set is looking good.  I was there recently to consult on a truss vertical in the attic that was getting in the way of blocking a scene; in a move that would make a structural engineer shudder, we arbitrarily moved it - and its mirror twin - over two feet.  Then talked through a few other items...  handrails, remodeling a cabinet, painting etc.  Normal at this stage.  Today will be more about lights and sound.

Also today is an important Production Meeting on Collapse at Kitchen Dog, which starts building this weekend.  I have the design, but it needs tweaking...  Then I draw like the wind!  Or maybe more as if being shoved along by a stiff wind.

Public domain image

Set Designer's Day - Rest

Last night, finally, though I spent a good few hours at the theater during the day, finishing up, I did NOT have to return at 11:00 p.m. for Notes after rehearsal.  And I didn't need to get up to an alarm this morning.  So I finally caught up on sleep.  Ten hours!

Sleep deprivation can be a problem in theater generally: actors have day jobs, then rehearse or perform at night; the same for running crew and board ops; producers ditto; while carpenters and painters work long hours during the Build, usually starting early; and prop designers or costumers just flat have so much to do that they skip sleep...

Theater set designers have the problem of starting early, to look in on and coordinate with builders and painters, but also spending hours finding, creating, or modifying set dressing, then staying up late to watch rehearsals or pop in afterwards for notes.  Some theaters, some of the time, ease this by sending out set notes as emails, but at others (and part of the time anywhere) the designer just needs to physically be there for discussion.

By the time Opening arrives, everyone involved in a production is getting a little punchy.

Crib * Molineaux - public domain image, messed with

Heating Up

The pace of my set design practice is warming up.  On Frequency of Death (the B&W show) today I'm meeting with scenic painters, to explain the paint elevations and get them started, and meeting with the rest of the production team tonight for, well, a production meeting.  Somewhere between the two meetings I need to finalize a furniture and set dressing list and research a few sources.  And do a little mentoring.   Gotta run!

Public domain image

Enter, Pursued by a Bear

Well, okay, no actual, real, live bear in pursuit... but at a run, certainly, pursued by deadlines.

This year started New Year's Eve with the opening of Pegasus Theatre's Death Is No Small Change - my first black & white production. Celebrating the B films of the '30s and '40s, these shows feature set, lighting, costumes, and props all in black, white, and gray scale... even the actors wear gray makeup. Then, at the end of the evening the producer walks out in a red dress, to stunning effect. Lots of fun!

Designers book shows early. Starting 2011 I'm already signed on for nine shows: the entire season at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth, starting with Boeing Boeing opening in February; The Traveling Lady, WaterTower Theatre's entry in the Horton Foote Festival, in March; Trinity Shakespeare Festival's As You Like It briskly followed by Five Women Wearing the Same Dress for Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, both opening in June; and my last Circle show is in November, ten months away.

As I figure out this Blog Thing I'll find a way to post up-coming shows here -

just in case you want to buy a ticket, eh?