Und so weiter...

And so on.

The crush of theater work here has slowed a bit (I'm only behind on one, well two, shows at present) and I'm back from a quick flit to the seaside (shrimp!) and settling into my annual cool weather highly efficient work-mode.  Or so I tell myself, in a effort to become, you know, highly efficient.

So what's going on?

I'm off to Kitchen Dog in an hour to help strike Detroit.  I'm not exactly sure what we're going to do with all that sod!  On my board are final details for The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told at Uptown Players, which starts building soon, and designs for The Great American Trailer Park Musical for OMG Productions in [the greater] San Francisco [area].  

I'm presently reading a newish book by Michael Chabon called Telegraph Avenue... which I'm enjoying, but so far at least it hasn't bumped his Summerland off my "Chabon Favorites" shelf.  If you happen to be hot on jazz or Berkeley, however, it may become your fav.  Always a good writer.  I saw the movie Gravity recently - liked it.  A great sense of Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace as an unimaginable huge and hostile environment.  The admirable reliability of the Space Shuttles (a marvel of engineering, though, tragically, only mostly reliable) sorta let us earthbound onlookers forget just how inhospitable space IS.  This film reminds me.  i want to see the new pirates-meet-Tom-Hanks film but haven't gotten to yet.

But the thrill of my recent little beach trip was getting to see a poor quality photocopy of a map of Galveston Bay.  Unsigned... but then would he dare sign it? At the time he was both secretly working for the Spanish and against them.  Simultaneously he was working both-ends-against-the-middle with the Americans and the French.  And the Mexicans.  Plus Texan filibusters and Louisianans and who knows who else?  Pirating is complicated.

HERE's an earlier post on Lafon with a link to his most famous map.

Miscellany

A few short catch-up posts:

1)  I've been doing some traveling lately.  New York City (read about it HERE) and - a quite different trip - to San Marcos and San Antonio this last weekend.

I haven't visited the old Aquarena Springs in San Marcos since I was a kid on a field trip.  The mermaids are gone now and so is the diving pig; I'm rather sad about that.  But, having now seen the de-kitsched springs... I have to agree that under the university's new management, the natural beauty of these springs and their historic, ecological, and geological importance are better revealed.  Diving pigs do distract even from Spanish gold and Clovis spear points.  Clovis! 12,000 years old, give or take.  This site has seen human habitation for as long as humans have been in North America and is home to several unique animal species.

The water is wonderfully clear.  Glass bottomed boats remain a perfect way to peer down into the depth and see the water weeds, the fish and turtles, and the magically bubbling waters from the Edwards aquifer.  (More info HERE.)

I can't figure out if this photo is public domain or not, it seems to be a city (therefore our tax -dollars-at-work) photo so i believe it is. Found HERE.  Please , dear copyright-holder, let me know if you want this removed.

2)  From San Marcos to San Antonio.  A very relaxed trip with no agenda except to wander the Riverwalk and visit the Market.  I can remember this way back when there were actual farmers at the market - nowadays it's mostly Mexican arts and crafts and blatantly touristy... yet there are some wonderful things if you look.  Every visit is different: the best things this time were gorgeous Talavera pottery and the wooden masks.  Plus Mi Tierra's pralines!

3)  Books:  My favorite reads lately are the latest in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series - set in 1830s New Orleans, though this book, The Shirt on His Back, travels to the Rockies, and Neil Gaiman's evocative new novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  Both very good - completely different experiences.  As usual with Gaiman's work, it's indescribable, you simply have to read it.



4)  I'm reading a new play, Detroit.
5)  The strike for Se Llama Cristina was yesterday.  I got to sit under the raised floor and help remove cross-bracing which was kinda fun.  Pizza and painting the stage floor black... the end of another show.

Final Performance and Strike

In a funny coincidence, both my shows ended their runs last night.

Today is Strike for The Lucky Chance and I'm due at the Bath House at noon to help.  So I'm wearing my paintin' pants as I draw a little on the show that replaces God of Carnage, which is A Brand New Boise.

Stay tuned!

Full Days

Yesterday: two hours of one Strike, nine hours of another Tech, no dinner.

Today:  finishing things for the rest of Tech....

Gotta Run!  Gotta fly!

public domain image at Public Domain Clip Art

Day of Rest? In Theater?

Ha.

Today was the strike for Ruth at Kitchen Dog.

A large number of Dogs were there to dismantle the set - which went pretty quickly.  As a set designer it always amazes me how much faster a set comes down than it goes up.  Poof!  and you're back in a blank black theater - as if the show never happened or hasn't happened yet or, given the word-haunted nature of theaters, is continually happening in some invisible, inaudible time-loop.

But there was a certain amount of resting today too: Movie Day!


Don't you love an ice-cold movie theater on a hot day?

Today's feature was the quirky time-travel-romance Safety Not Guaranteed.  Definitely an off-beat, not-high-budget film... which I really enjoyed.  Much more about the people than the sci-fi, though that was there too.  Another recent satisfyingly quirky feel-good flick was Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.  Frankly, I have never gotten his humor before this, but because of its young protagonists, this film was more accessible (at least for me) and I really liked it.

Of my "bigger" movie viewings lately, I enjoyed Men in Black III - much better than a sequel should be - and The Avengers - still fun on a second viewing.

And just to catch up on months of TV while I'm at it: I've enjoyed the (now canceled) eccentric spin-off from Bones called The Finder; the forensic procedural show Bones itself; the writer-n-cop show Castle; catching up on 30 Rock (I'm still way behind); and Vampire Diaries (also a season behind).  I've enjoyed several British shows: Doctor Who of course, the grumpy doctor show Doc Martin, and another quirky time-travel story, a police show called Life on Mars.

Time travel - it's everywhere.

Believed public domain image.

Striking

Yesterday was strike for two of my shows The Frequency of Death and The Diary of Anne Frank.

For the set designer this mostly means collecting your junk off the sets... before some eager stage hand tosses it in the dumpster.  (This has happened.)  So I drove first to Lewisville to collect picture frames, flowers, assorted black & white tchotchkes, and two borrowed chairs, drove those chairs back to their owner-theater in Addison, and there picked up my few bits of set dressing from that show.  Then drove to Dallas to paint on the rapidly-up-coming Collapse.

Lotso drivin'.

Here are a few pics of the Frequency strike:

The Frequency of Death strike, Pegasus Theatre at the Lewisville Grand

Stage left, starting to disassemble wall flats - See the bucket?  Roof leak!

The sad shambles... See the once elegant chandelier, grounded.

Another Strike

In the Next Room closed last night and the set came down today.

Sad.  But sorta Circle of Life-ish.

public domain image

Because, of course, this set comes down so the next set goes up.  (I saw its fascinating model at the strike for mine.)  In a particularly life-cycle way, some of my hand-carved brick was saved so that it can be used to build someone else's set elsewhere.  I saved the brick fireplace arch to be an insta-fireplace on some future set of my own.  Plus a lot of curtain fabric ditto.  But then, the screens we used for this set had already been used for a locally filmed television show, before being gifted to Kitchen Dog.  Much of the furniture (borrowed from two other theaters) has appeared in many earlier shows and will appear in yet more... some of them mine.  That's kind of nice to look forward to.

In theater, what goes around comes around and around and around...

(Earlier posts about Strikes: here and here.)

Car Load of Strike

Ha!  And yesterday I was complaining about having a box of models and drawings to put away...  Today I have a car full of things from Strike that need to be stored or returned.  In my (small) car at this moment - no kiddin' - are;

1. 1 lg. oak desk chair with arms - return theater #1
2. 1 sm. secretary chair w/out arms -  "         "       "
3. 1 drafting stool (disassembled) - store
4. 2 tall stools (unmatched) - return 1, store 1
5. 1 tall metal rack shelf unit (disassembled) - store
6. 6 boxes painted books - return theater #2
7. approx. 8 pc. large foam molding - return theater #3
8. approx. 5 pc. small wood molding -    "         "      "
9. 7 practical lanterns - just inherited, store
10. 2 paint trays & rollers - trash dirty roller covers, store rest
11. 1 ice bucket, 4 glasses, 1 bowl, 1 tray, 3 "pewter" mugs, 1 trophy etc. - store
12. 6 pc. assort. mad-scientist gear, inclu. 1 "remote control"
13. 1 trashcan w/ misc. set dressing - store set dressing...

I get my studio trash can back!!

The thing about set designing no one mentions is that mostly your car (and garage and attic and front hall...) are Full Of Junk.

Strike

A sad day - Strike.  That set that you only finished it seems like minutes ago, now has to be dismantled.

For the black & white show, Death is No Small Change, tonight is the last performance and the strike.  The set designer has to show up and collect her stuff.  Which means I'll get my studio trash can back!  Wahoo!

Otherwise sad.  Quite sad.  Very sad.

Some shows you miss long afterwards: I still miss long ago Sweeney Todd and Urinetown, and the recent Charm.

Charm at Kitchen Dog Theater