A Quiet Place

Yesterday one show Opened.  Tomorrow another one Techs.

But today is quiet.

Ssssshhhh....

Le Hamoc by Gustave Courbet - believed public domain image

Enjoy a summer Saturday.

First Peek at The Divine Sister

Here's the first photo I've seen of my newly-completed-paint-barely-dry set for The Divine Sister at Uptown Players.

Photo courtesy of Uptown Players

Notice my St. Francis church window?  With his traditional giraffe of course...  

Dressing a Boar

Well, Set dressing with a Boar's head.

A fake one.

My set for Uptown Player's The Divine Sister consists of two sets, really, splitting the revolve at the Kalita Humphreys theater.  The big half represents St. Veronica's convent school; the small half is the living room of a mansion.  It seems that the late husband of this rich widow was a naturalist and traveler, so naturally we looked for "naturalist" sorta stuff to use as set dressing for the it-could-otherwise-be-generic rich lady's salon.  I borrowed African masks, framed copies of Audubon's bird paintings, and even framed my own home-made (paper) butterfly collection, then...

One of the interns has a connection to SMU's theater department.  Several of us remembered the handsome faux animal heads that hang in SMU's shop and... well, there was this gorgeous Boar's Head.  And we could borrow it!

It's about the size of a small car - a Smart Car, maybe.

A HUGE black Boars's head!

A Boar's Head - public domain image from Wikipedia Commons

Cool.

Years ago I watched SMU's wizard of a prop designer build this surprisingly light-weight fake taxidermy specimen hair by hair.  Incredible!  I've always admired it.  Was thrilled at this chance to use it.  So now, over my large faux marble fireplace in this elegant, rather dainty, lady's sitting room there hangs this monstrously over-sized pig head.

This creates a few decorative problems.  For one thing, although the fireplace mantel is tall and the set wall is tall and the fireplace-breast even taller, the director needed the piggy hung very very low so the dainty-sized actress can touch it.

This looks kinda like...
                                 the boar's head is so heavy it...
                                                                      slid down the wall.

But I fixed that.  Some.  I added a temple-front "cap" to the wall (to make it look shorter) and then added a faux stone heraldic shield between that cap and the Head to help fill the upper part of the wall (a shield left over from Shakespeare's Richard III, most recently reused over the fireplace for Boeing, Boeing).  Then I dressed the mantel top with over-sized candlesticks and photo frames.

Now it looks rather as if the Boar is pushing his Head through the wall to look at snaps of the late husband.  (I found great man-with-mustache-in-pith-helmet photos!)

Funny.

Then I dragged in the biggest, blackest classical urn I could find to hold the decorative palm tree off in the set's corner... so The Boar's Head isn't the only big, black thing on set.

ADDENDUM: a link to an earlier post on using art as set dressing HERE.

Towards Opening...

At Uptown Players (in that famous Frank Lloyd Wright theater the Kalita Humphries), the set for the Divine Sister is inching closer to completion.

It takes a Ton of Work by many, many people to get it there.

Oh, and at the same time - and often on the same square foot of stage with the clashing of ladders, lifts, buckets and whatnot - the actors, director, producers, light and sound and costume and prop designers, techs and stage hands, stage manager, interns, and volunteers are all equally busy.  Not on the set alone, but on the Whole Show.

Tons o' Work!  By Tons o' People!

The Crowd- believed public domain photo

I've working in and out of the theater every day for a week and will be there for the next several days too.

Art as set Dressing

Apologies for the scarce posts lately - the combination of work and summer holidays makes it more difficult than ever to find blogging time.

Today, however, I'll give you a peek at what's happening off stage before it appears onstage:

Art.

My up-coming set for Uptown Players' next show, The Divine Sister, has two locations that share a turntable - St. Veronica's Catholic School (and convent) and a rich woman's living room.  And for that living room, I need art on the walls.

Not just art though.  The story is that her late husband was a naturalist and traveler, so some of what goes up on the wall will be dead animal heads etc.  So far I've borrowed a sad collection of taxidermy: a one-eyed deer head, a set of antlers, a stuffed fish, and a molting duck.  (There are duck feathers in my car now.  All over my car.)  I need to make a couple picture frames filled with a butterfly collection... once I find suitable frames.  But I do already have a collection of matching gold frames (incredibly cheap dollar store ones), which I will fill with reproductions of Audubon bird paintings.

Many shows require art chosen to illustrate a character's biography or interests.

I've been creating a ton of set art lately, including a whole collection of faux Picasso and Miro prints for the rich playboy's apartment in Boeing, Boeing, creating faux Broadway show posters for the theater producer's office in Mistakes Were Made, and framing a family gallery of photos for Crimes of the Heart.

A set designer (and/or set dresser if lucky enough to have one) spends a lot of time thinking about what this art should be... and an even longer time finding and then buying or copying images, photo-copying these into usable sizes, finding frames, and then framing and hanging it all.  As anyone who has framed even a diploma lately knows, framing art can be hugely expensive.  Remember that theater has no real budget for that!  The designer has to borrow, thrift shop, and fake that pricey framing.  And, obviously, public domain images are the way to go, for all sorts of legal reasons.

It gets tricky.

Audubon flamingo - public domain image.

Hare Brain versus Tortoise Brain

John Cleese on creativity HERE.

(Procrastination can be a virtue!)

e-Book Advantage

I've just discovered a new advantage to e-readers that I never expected.

A favorite author, Lois McMaster Bujold, has a new book coming out, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.  In November.

Long wait!  Like any devoted fan, I've been ticking off days in my calendar until I could get my hands on a copy.  But now the author and publisher, Baen Books, have had a brain wave: let eager readers buy the electronic Advanced Readers Copy...

NOW!

Having devoured the book at (almost) one sitting yesterday, I can safely say this is a very fan-satisfying novel. It wraps up all kinds of loose ends for the title character, long a favorite, and in way I at least never expected.

For new readers, I would probably not recommend starting Bujold's award-winning science fiction series about the planet Barrayar and the Vorkosigan family with this book; better to start with Cordelia's Honor (or Shards of Honor), then work through the books in internal chronological order.  This new novel fits in the series time-frame just after Diplomatic Immunity.  But read in publication order, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance makes a very good capstone to the series so far.

One of the things I like about Bujold's Barrayar series is that each book has a distinct character - space opera, adventure, romance, mystery, or in this case, a sort of heist caper with (this is Ivan!) romantic and humorous overtones.

All Bujold's novels develop the classic S-F "what-if?" where some scientific and/or social development is expanded to its logical conclusions. (Speculation that is exactly what I love about S-F.)  Bujold's books all contain humor, often of a comedy-of-manners style, and can have elements of romance.  But an amusing tone and the biological sciences she speculates upon - rather than rocketry or ray guns - can fool a reader into overlooking how "hard" her science is and how ruthlessly she spins out its social effects.  Her books discuss exactly the scientific, medical, ethical, social, and legal issues our present day society grapples with: life extension, genetic manipulation, cloning.

But while Bujold's fictional science and time-frame are futuristic, she keeps her human characters very... human.  Even her evolving-super-race, the Centagandan Hauts, have recognizably human motives like revenge and spite (as this novel illustrates).  

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold, Baen Books

I don't want to spoil Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, so I'll just say that Bujold's new book lives up to her usual high standards of writing and invention with some particularly comic moments.  As a long-time series fan, I enjoyed the tidbits about other characters sidelined in this plot and was very satisfied with this resolution to the Idiot-Ivan dilemma - great fun to read a book with his viewpoint! I really enjoyed this book's ride.  


Thank you Ms. Bujold.  I'll start re-reading immediately.


You!  Go buy a copy of either Captain Vorpatril's Alliance HERE or, if you're a newbie, buy or check out Cordelia's Honor and get to reading!

Sunburnt Garden

This morning's Dallas Morning News had another article about the continuing negotiations between the Nasher Sculpture Center and Museum Tower, the ultra-lux high-rise condo project that is reflecting sunlight into the Nasher's galleries and garden.  (Earlier post HERE.)

It seems one of the lawyers has written a "combative" letter.  (What other kind do lawyers write?)  The letter is part of an attempt to keep the paper from gaining public access to notes, emails, etc. regarding the negotiations.  (If talks are ongoing, a little privacy might be helpful?)

Legal and PR wrangles aside, it seems to me that the only possible solution will be to add some sort of solar screen or bris soleil to the western face of Museum Tower to reflect sunlight away from the Nasher... and incidentally save condo owners fortunes in air conditioning bills.

I'm amazed there wasn't some solar protection on the tower from the beginning anyway, but since there isn't it can be designed to focus sunlight elsewhere.

A bris soleil on the Times building - image from architechnophilia illustrating an interesting article on architecture and unintended consequences

The catch to this solution, obviously, is that someone has to pay for it.  Luckily, the condo owners will be  rich people.

This situation is not very different from when any new building diverts rainwater to flood a neighbor: what wasn't a problem before, suddenly IS because of the new construction.  The law is clear on the responsibility for site drainage, intruding trees, or wandering cattle - ancient legal squabbles- but not so clear on reflected sunlight - there having been little reflective glass in antiquity, I suppose.  But there have been modern precedents, like Frank Gehry's Disney concert hall in L.A., whose reflective skin cooked neighboring condos.  I'm sure there are others.

But whatever the legal responsibility or cost, Museum Tower - which takes its name and importance from its location in Dallas' Arts District - needs to be a good neighbor.  I think they are trying to fix the problem graciously...  Just my opinion, but I think gracious is the way to go.

Not like the Nasher could erect a forty-story spite-fence, is it?