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

 

 

Volume of Internet Stuff

 In aid of getting out the word about my new second edition of Alice Through the Proscenium I ended up just, y'know, ego-surfing... to see what pops on the internet when I type in my name or catchy phrases like "Clare DeVries theater book" and like that.

As one does.

In that surfing I found (like notes in a bottle) photos I'd never seen of a show I designed last spring for Tarrant College SE, The Volume of Smoke:

Photos I believe are by its multi-talented director Brad McEntire

A Design Charrette

Today's the big day for my Stage West theater set design students - a full day design charrette for a made-up-by-me show:

Pretty sure this is out of copyright as it was published in 1918

Three Little Pigs – the Musical (the Outline)

Not a kid version.  (Less Disney, more Brothers Grimm, with cheeky references to Into the Woods, The Wizard of Oz, and This Old House.)  The danger and violence feel real and the ending – cooking and eating the Wolf – is triumph, retribution and tragedy. 

 Imagine being a Pig... This is home-invasion!  A monster beseiges a disjointed family that has to come together as true brothers to save themselves.  Imagine being a Wolf... with Wife and hungry Pups to feed at home. 

 Set in the timeless ever-present of fairytales or hunger and homelessness.

Scene 1 – The Woods 

The Wolf’s place.  Dark.  Dangerous.  Hungry.

 (Throughout the play the Wolf narrates –cynical, amusing, ruthless.  Sometimes he is joined by a chorus of  Woodland Creatures, an ensemble of cute(ish) dancing / acrobatic critters: Deer, Raccoon, Rabbit, Squirrel, Owl, and that obnoxious Happiness Bluebird.  They’re all terrified of the Wolf - except for Owl, because it takes a predator to understand a predator.  While Squirrel and Rabbit don’t trust Owl.  TheWoodlanders also sing as Wolf’s Wife and his litter of Pups.)

 Scene 2 – A Road Through the Woods

An inhospitable No-Pigs’-Land.  The Pigs have been kicked out of their nest, er, sty by their Mother Pig, who can’t stand the brothers’ arguing, jealousy, and laziness a moment longer.  Also there’s no food.  So she kicked them out into a hostile and hungry world.

Scene 3 – Traveling  (Dance tribute to Oz ending with throwing apples.)

Scene 4 – A Clearing at the Edge of the Woods.  There are apple trees, remnants of an old orchard, and a feral vegetable garden that still yields a few carrots and potatoes and such.  The tumbled ruins of the old farmstead are almost back to woodland, but there are bricks and sticks and, if the meadow grass is cut with that rusty sythe, there could be straw.

Scene 5 – Same Clearing, building is started.  (Big dance number, a flavor of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.)

Scene 6 – Same Clearing, the House of Straw is complete, then blown away. 

(The hit single “Huff n’ Puff” in its first iteration, repeated for each house.)

Scene 7 – Same Clearing, the House of Sticks is complete, then blown away

Scene 8 – Same Clearing, The House of Bricks is complete and smoke comes from its brick chimney.  First Wolf attack. 

Scene 9 – Same Clearing, Full Moon. (Wolf’s and Mrs. Wolf’s big duet.) 

Scene 10 – House of Bricks Exterior/Interior, roaring fire and boiling soup pot.  Second Wolf attack.

Scene 11 – Same Interior, Dinner!  (Stupendous dance number) 

(It’s macabre, but the Wolf, who narrated throughout the story, narrates again now – his talking head on a plate on the feasting table.  He sings that, without him,  Wolf’s Wife will have to send the Pups out into the world... hungry.  The play ends when a Pig puts an apple in Wolf’s mouth to shut him up.) 

That's the synopsis.  The students will try to come up with designs that solve the problems it presents in a black box theater.  (Notice the big one yet?  That transition from Woods to Clearing?)  (Well, and also the built-in problem of building and blowing-away piggie houses on stage in the audience's full view.)

So, the idea of a charrette is to sit down and thrash out an initial design.  I've read definitions online that define it as including input from others (not just the designer) and, in my experience, this can be true.  (Architect Charles Moore, a noted and unusually collaborative collaborator once responded to citizen phone calls!)  But to me, the all-at-a-single-sitting is the defining aspect.  It's a way to force-march through the design process.  And the time pressure and presence of others also struggling with the problem that adds oomph! to your thinking.  

The students are about a 1/2 hour into it - just starting to grasp the difficulties.  We'll see what they've got in 5 1/2 more hours.  (5 1/2 hours minus pizza time.)

A little extra tidbit: I discovered that the name "charrette" comes from the French name for the cart that rolled around the Ecole de Beaux Arts, collecting student architects' work.  The work would be taken away to be judged... just like the tumbril taking prisoners to the guillotine, or so my old French professor explained.

No tumbril today! 

A Break in the Drought

 It rained the other night.  

Here in a fire-weather parched landscape came a few minutes of rain... creating the rich smell of hot dust meeting raindrops as it turns into damp earth.  There wasn't enough time to rush out to dance in it. but I stuck my head and arms out the window and laughed.

Later that day... my first invitation to design a stage show in what will be two years.

That fertile and heady smell of first rain on dry earth has a name: petrichor.

It's intoxicating.

Siege - Days 31, 32, 33, and 34

Boy

This thing just keeps on going, doesn't it?  It's the Energizer Bunny of Home Alone(ish) Pandemics.

So what's been going on here at Studio Seclusion?  

Continuing work on the second edition of my Alice set design book.  My momentum is increasing...  Several new illustrations, including this one, for a section talking about theater soft goods like this cut-drop:

(I like that I managed to work into that sketch both Tenniel's famous image of Alice pulling back a curtain AND his rose-painting card.  (Five of Spades was always literally painting scenery - roses - so he was always a scenic painter.)

Currently hacking at a study model of a beach house.  Still doing worksheets of various Social Security filing strategies.  Still cooking, eating, watching tomatoes grow.  Watching - Friday Night - Kitchen Dog Theater's online production of 62 coronavirus 1-minute plays.  Very interesting.  The plays varied, some sad or angry, many worried, some funny.  Most striking to me were the plays about the late mother's recipe... what soup did it use?  Never thought someone saying "Cream of Celery Soup" would tear me up.  The one played by two roaches (played with glee by two of KD's best actors) was very funny.  Most memorable line of the night was, "I never thought the apocalypse would be so domesticated."

Me neither.

We did have one out-of-house experience, a trip to officially observe a fire station under construction (gloves, masks, hard hats) and a trip to the fancy grocery store (where the hard hat might have been a comfort - shopping is so weird now).  At the construction site there were huge bilingual signs commanding you to have your temperature taken and to wear masks etc. - plus a clever hand-washing station - but only a few of the sparse Saturday work crew seemed to be bothering with all that.  At the fancy grocery store the metered line for entry was a block long, masks were mandatory, and grocery staff saw to it that rules were followed.  We bought a bag of mussels, so dinner was those mussels with a yellow curry sauce and good bread and possibly the perfect wine.  Very tasty.

On the reading front, I just got a copy through the mail of Sarah Ruhl's 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write.  Just started dipping into them, but so far it's both thoughtful and funny.  I got to design a couple of her plays:  In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) and Stage Kiss.  Both turned out well, but Vibrator is the one I'm most happy with.

In the Other Room (or the Vibrator Play) at Kitchen Dog Theater

Here's a close up of the inglenook area:

In the Other Room... I sure do like details...

I like detail.  On the how-to side, those bricks were all carved by hand (by me) with a flexible snap-blade knife into sheets of stiff, fine-grained foam (not that expanded polystyrene beer cooler stuff). 

On into the week ahead... 

Siege of Dallas - Day #1

Well, if you've heard me sometimes complain about being too busy and not home enough... the pandemic has fixed that!  Dallas County has closed all bars and restaurants (except for take out) and, naturally, all large gatherings... which means theaters are shut.

Very tough.

So here I am with an empty drawing board.

Sorta.

Besides doing taxes and all the many, many chores that I have been putting off forever, and really getting into the major rewrite and expansion of my set design book Alice Through the Proscenium (there will be Case Studies, very cool!) I've been doing a bit of stocking-up-the-pantry shopping, and a few sketches for a friend's D&D campaign: The Silver Chain.  

See the pretty map of the castle?

D&D Castle Wyvern - copyright reserved to the artist and Dungeon Master.

I wish I had wise words to share about the crazy, scary state of the world right now.  But all I have is a determination to stay as calm and as usefully busy as possible, to get in touch with friends and family, to enjoy things - spring! imaginary maps! books! jokes with loved ones!   Anyway.  And to help where I can, though I am in lock-down, even if it's only with bad jokes or maps or donations to food banks.

And to wash my hands.

A lot.

Did Someone Mention Life/Work Balance?

Ha!

As if.

It's been a crazy,  crazy few months.  Five months.

Several shows, several holidays, and one family health crisis later (pro tip: don't let 89-year-olds fall over, just don't.) I'm finally able to dump some pictures here!  (I'll try to talk more about each next time, when I have more time.)

Harvey at WaterTower Theater:

Harvey, WaterTower Theater - photos by Jason Anderson

Alabaster at Kitchen Dog Theater:    On stage through March 8th!

Alabaster at Kitchen Dog Theater.  The house's bedroom with all our "folk art"

Close-up of art...

An in-progress photo of "weeding" the goat hill side of the set. 

This show is kinda a big deal - this year's Hot Play and our entry into its rolling world premier.  A Theater Jones review is HERE , a Column review HERE, and really nice article in the Dallas News with good pictures HERE.  I really enjoyed being part of this effort, working with this talented team,  and getting to meet the playwright!

The Royal Dilemma by Think India and Mainstage Irving-Los Colinas:  I'm attaching a blurry picture of the cave scene from The Royal Dilemma from last fall (the blurry may hide the not-quiiiiite-done aspects.  This was an insanely ambitious show and a ton of fun!  I never got good pictures.)

Think India Foundation's The Royal Dilemma

I will attempt to be more regular in my posts from here on out.

If no one else breaks an arm...?

Books and Such

(Look another post - and so soon!)

First, here's a fast peek at an upcoming show, a collaboration between Mainstage Irving Los Colinas and Think India.  For a few years now they have collaborated on huge (and I mean Huge) story/song/dance spectaculars.  This year I'm designing the sets.  (And I mean Sets: there are not one, not two, but three separate Indian palaces in the story of The Royal Dilemma!)  So here's a just random, warming-up-the-audience Ali Baba style cavern to start out:

Concept sketch for scene 1 of The Royal Dilemma - 

set design by Clare Floyd DeVries, production by Think India/Mainstage Irving Los Colinas

So that's the "and such"... The "books"?  

I recently had a chance to tour a young designer and a student around two of my sets on stage and generally Talk Design - always fun.  Inevitably the subject of books came up (doesn't it always?).  Now I will admit that these days the first attempt at research is always a matter of googling - and I love internet research - but the second, more serious deep-dive always includes books.  The thicker the better.  Every designer I know accumulates at least a modest library.

Here are a few books from my shelves that I refer to often:

Authentic Decor: the Domestic Interior 1620-1920, Peter Thornton

Period Details: a Sourcebook for House Restoration, Martin and Judith Miller

The Elements of Style, Stephen Calloway ed.

And, for the skills, methods, and how to achieve a scenic effect,

Designing and Painting for the Theatre, Lynn Pecktal

Book talk usually wanders off into fiction and "so, read any good books lately?"

Here are a few of my favs:

Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series of magical police novels.  Set in London.  I love the characters and especially the protagonist's wry and snarky voice.

Uprooted by Naomi Kovic.  Another magic-is-real novel, but with a tone like a Russian fairy tale.  (I made the mistake of checking out the Good Reads reviews - wow - this seems to be a love it or hate it book.  Vote me "loved it!")

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel.  I think of it as a post-apocalyptic tale of art and Shakespeare.  It is structured unusually and reminds me, in some ways, of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas another terrific and strangely "accumulating" story, one that gathers weight and meaning as it goes on.

Obviously I've been on a speculative fiction / world-building reading binge.  But I also read other things...  I can highly recommend the odd-duo I'm reading right now, in alternate bites: The Mueller Report, Volume II and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Moral whiplash, those two together.

"The best revenge is to not be like that."

Marcus Aurelius

The Blogging Habit - a Huuuuge Catch-Up Post

"Where have you been?" my faithful readers (all both of them) might ask.

Sorry, it's been a wild few months and I haven't posted a thing.  First there were a bunch of shows and family health issues and holidays, then family weddings and more shows, and now home repair and yet more shows...  Blogging - like exercising - turns out to be hard to do regularly, but much much harder to do if you get out of the habit!

I'm trying to regain the blogging habit.

So, what did I miss blogging about?

RECENT SHOWS:

The shows at the end of last year included Once, my first show ever at Theatre Three.  I never got to see the final show.  We had tickets and friends lined up to see Opening, but spent the evening at the hospital instead (all's well now, so no worries); rehearsals however were wonderful!  Here's a sketch, inspired by Dublin's architecture and street art scene.

Once at Theatre Three - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

Almost simultaneous was Men on Boats at Circle Theatre (my last there as Resident Set Designer - they're getting rid of residents, new management, new philosophy).  Suggesting the Grand Canyon on Circle's low-ceilinged stage was a bit of a trick!  Here's the model... which was finished and painted in a hospital room.  (A great conversation starter with nurses.)

Men on Boats at Circle Theatre - model and design by Clare Floyd DeVries

The actual set was built from ordinary flats and platforms with an added layer of carved foam and then paint.  Big thanks to the great carpenters and painters who pulled this off with while I was preoccupied with other things.  Thank you.

At Kitchen Dog Theater, Radiant Vermin was a completely different kind of design - a minimalist sort of Monopoly house all-white stage with spiffy model house footlights.

Radiant Vermin at Kitchen Dog Theater - sorry, I don't know who the photographer is (tell me and I'll eagerly credit them).  

The floor and wall - to ensure perfect, seamless whiteness - were built very smooth and flat, then covered with stretched muslin painted, and frequently re-painted, white, white, white.

Radiant Vermin at Kitchen Dog Theater - sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries

And, lastly, Kiss Me Kate at MainStage Irving Las Colinas.

Kiss Me Kate at MainStage Irving Las Colinas - a construction drawings, just for variety

It was a little hectic just last Fall!  

Since then You Got Older at Kitchen Dog has opened and closed...  

I don't have any good images for that one yet, but I'll add them asap.  Basically, it was one of those scripts with many varied settings that are difficult to do on a small stage - reality, fantasy, garden (with growing/dying bean plants), bedroom, kitchen, dive-bar, hospital room, woods during a violent snow storm, imaginary cabin snowed-in during that blizzard...  

Our solution was to build a seemingly simple wall of "weathered" wood slats that opened up or pulled out and thus transformed to suggest the different locations.  I compared it to a Swiss watch... but maybe more a Swiss cuckoo clock?

You Got Older at Kitchen Dog Theater - sketch plan by Clare Floyd DeVries

UP-COMING SHOWS:

Several exciting things are coming up, including Office Hour at Circle Theatre (my first as a visiting designer), Wolf at the Door at Kitchen Dog, and - the BIG excitement! - my first Off-Broadway show, an Equity Showcase of Self-Injurious Behavior at Urban Stages in NYC.  Can't show sketches of this yet - the director needs to see them first - but I thought I'd blog the whole process here as it goes along.  

So, new section...

Self-Injurious Behavior - the Off-Broadway Adventure:

To date, this show - written by Dallas actress/playwright Jessica Cavanagh -  has had a first, very successful, run at Theatre Three's downstairs space Theatre Too.

This run was so successful that it was decided to pick the whole thing up and move it to New York: props, costumes, director, whole company, and designers...  except for the original set designer - who had conflicts - and the original set - which wouldn't fit this completely different stage.

Hence me!  A lucky fluke... which is often how Big Breaks work I notice.

More on this show as it develops...

A Week in the Life of a Set Designer

Admittedly a busy week...

Last THURSDAY:

An enjoyable meeting with the set dresser for Kiss Me Kate at Mainstage Irving Las Colinas.  (For which I wasn't 100% mentally ready as a. I hadn't finished the construction drawings yet and b. I was totally consumed with other shows and other deadlines.  In my defense be it known that Kate doesn't actually open until November.)  

Anyway, we talked about basic design direction - simplified, stylized, black & white & gray plus punch-of-color, with those colors largely chosen from borrowed drops in order to tie this thing together!  Already a handsome three part dressing screen is found!

Here are rough photos of the very rough white model for Kate:

This is the ground state of the musical, the Backstage look.

This is the look for Downtown Padua in the play within the play.

And here's a look at Petruchio's House interior.  

In order to simplify all the (many many) setting changes, I have one large fixed unit that gets redressed now and then and four small-as-possible wagons that spin round to use their reverse sides as different set pieces.  That fireplace unit above will be particularly cunning since its reverse is the theater's stage door.

Also Thursday was a production meeting for Once  at Theatre Three.  After an afternoon of helping paint etc. in the theater and a short coffee break/chat at the nearby Thai street food place.  (I'm getting addicted to their iced Thai coffee!)

Here's the color sketch of the large scenic unit AKA "The Main".  Remember this, we'll get back to it anon.

FRIDAY: 

First meeting with a new-to-me director for the next show at Circle Theater, Men on Boats.  This is going to be exciting and challenging...  How do you scenically convey the Grand Canyon?  (And on a stage with 9' high ceilings?)

SATURDAY:

All day (Day 1) Tech for Once.  I got home at 11:30.  (It was a good thing I'd gone fabric shopping for "wallpaper" that morning because the AC was freezing!  I wore my "wallpaper" wrapped round me like a shawl, even over my head, as I watched the Q2Q.)  The music is amazing!  Going to be a good show.

SUNDAY:

I was excused from more than a pop-in today at Once as Q2Q continued.  (The pop-in...  Me: "Any notes?"  Them: "Not yet."  Perfect!)

MONDAY:

Print out set dressing photos for Once at home, frame them with frames from my garage storage mess, um, Tupperware TM  system, then return to paint some more.  9:30 pm production meeting on the next show for Kitchen Dog Theater (with the bestest title!) Radiant Vermin.  Here's an idea sketch of the sorta footlights, for which the prop designer brought in a fantastic 3D vacuform test model:

TUESDAY:

More painting on Once.

WEDNESDAY:

More painting on Once.  Here we are, three hours until Picture Call:

Phew!

Once previews tonight and officially opens Monday - buy tickets soon because they're gonna be hot!  And keep an eye open for Radiant Vermin, Men on Boats, and Kiss Me Kate because, each in their very different way, they look good...

"Traditional"

A designer friend pointed out an interesting article in The Telegraph (HERE) that talks about the disservice "traditional" theater design habits pose for actors of color...   Basically, that a "traditionally" dark colored set for Othello can cause a dark-skinned Othello to fade into the background.

To which I say, "duh."

Doesn't that seem like a likely hazard a set designer ought to expect?  Ditto the lose-their-face chances of overly dark or, say, skin-tone-brown costumes.  Wake up people!

Now, lighting designers may have a more legitimate problem, in that many commonly used lighting color gels don't flatter darker skin tones... but solving that problem is just a matter of a little forethought.  LED lighting is tricky mostly because, as far as I can see, LED's natural color range doesn't look right on any person of any skin color.  I've certainly witnessed a few lighting designers struggle before finding the right color.  Then again, if Elpheba in Wicked can be made to look green and glorious next to her pinky sister-witch, any actor can have a perfect, flattering light.

From my observation of shows where I've had African-American casts, the flattering color thing has usually been more a lighting issue than a set color one.  Of three shows: one had a set with strong colors and natural texture/colors where darker skin tones allowed the set to be more bold than it might have been and lighting used wonderful, saturated, crazy colors; the second was a world of caramel where the set faded into a nostalgic, sepia backdrop, costumes were mostly subdued, but lighting made faces pop; and the third show struggled a bit...  The set was minimal - just a warm/tawny oak floor and the cool gray of the theater's walls.  Costumes varied, but had definite color, and lighting - eventually - found a way to accentuate actors' faces.  I think the secret was when a blue wash was added to the theater walls that backlit and emphasized the actors.  Experiment!  That's  key.

Ruined by Echo Theatre - notice the deep deep saturated color in the background and the flattering light on the featured actress.  The bright colors of the set appeared and disappeared as the colors of the lighting changed... which was kinda fun.

Hard turn in this conversation:  Also "traditional"?

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Both freedoms are under siege by this president and his supporters.  Just in the past couple days the press has been derided - again - as Fake News or Enemies of the People and presidential critics have been insulted.  Former CIA director John Brennan had his security clearance revoked.  The man who helped lead the capture of Osama bin Laden can't be trusted with U.S, secrets?!  In what alternate universe is that true?  No, he just pissed off the president.  This is petty retribution and warning to others.

What can you personally do?

Lots:

1)  Call your representative and senator's offices.  Protest this un-American behavior.  Every.  Single.  Time.

2)  Subscribe to your local paper.

3)  Then subscribe to a national or international paper and to favorite pod casts or news radio or blogs etc.

4)  Read/listen/watch news and opinion from different and even uncomfortable sources.  See what others are seeing.

5)  Vote for candidates that uphold ideas you value, like honest, polite debate on issues, not name-calling, sound bites, or group-think.

6)  Speak out yourself.  

Don't use it?  You might lose it.

Catch Up Photos

A few pics from shows earlier this year...

The Gazebo at Main Stage Irving Las Colinas:

The Royale at Kitchen Dog Theater:

Now onstage? 

Go see Bread at WaterTower Theatre in Addison - a wonderful new play by Regina Taylor set in Dallas' Oak Cliff.

(And while you're play-watching, check out Pompeii at Kitchen Dog.  I'm gettin' tickets!)