News Break

Just found out I won a Critics' Forum Award for the set of The Explorers Club at Stage West and WaterTower Theater.  Pretty cool!  (Critics Forums are hard to get hold of.)

Many thanks - I'm thrilled.  I'm also grateful for the HUGE amount of help from everyone at Stage West who beautifully built, painted, upholstered, created faux books, helped set dress, loaned us taxidermy animal heads (from a WaterTower backer, thank you!), and generally made the set possible.  Twice.

The Explorers Club - Stage West and WaterTower Theater

Note the bar top of cheapo "granite" plastic laminate and foam pool noodles covered with vinyl,

and the painted mahogany.  Behind it is a Plexiglas and Modge-Podge-ed "stained glass" window 

which I decorated, now decorating my studio.

General woodsy library with many stuffed animal heads.  Those books, 

believe it or not, are mostly faked by Stage West's prop designer.

Note the globe used as the topper of the stair's newel post.  There was a funny 

slapstick moment when a character leaned on it.

More libraryishness...  You can see an antelope head.  Photos courtesy of Stage West

My original sketch.  We never found a taxidermy bear, but we were 

kindly loaned a suit of armor instead!  The bar's support lions were another kind loan.

Paper Rules!

An encouraging finding: among 4,000 designers surveyed world-wide, most of them - 64% - still use plain ol' paper and pen or pencil to brainstorm.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

One designer remarked on the particular usefulness of this old-tech method in a meeting.  

Exactly!  Nothing is as fast, as flexible, as readily available as scribbling on paper.  You can respond immediately to the flow of thought in a meeting - or while solo brainstorming.  There is less temptation to perfect the drawing (and computers do prefer perfect); instead the impulse on an impromptu scrap of paper is to rough out something messy but expressive. 

The this-ain't-nothin' worthlessness of a quick sketch on a cocktail napkin is part of its value - it stops the rough idea from becoming too precious to change or discard.

Sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries - do not use commercially please.

The ability to create fast hand sketches is so useful that I once

got flown to Tennessee just to show design grad students how.

Now, the old style of formal hand-drawn drafting or presentation drawings... those easily(ish) translate into computer hardware and software use.

More on the survey HERE at Wired.com.

Copyright and Trolls

I've written about copyright before (check the ol' Archive if interested), but here's a heads-up! on Patent Trolls.

Before starting...  We do remember that using other people's work without permission is Wrong, right?

But say you do borrow something and transform it fundamentally (fair use) or you ask or pay for permission for this use or you create every fragment yourself from scratch.  Anything that ends up on the internet is susceptible to challenge from those nasty trolls that extort money (which seems to seldom make it back to actual creators) for copyright or patent infringement.  The courts are starting to wise up to the trolls - but who wants to go to court?

Anyway.

BoingBoing has a ridiculous example of this kind of trolling today: a magazine shaken down for use of An Ink Blot.

Not this one - this is a free image from i2Clipart.com

Seriously.  You can get grief from using a splatter of ink - in this magazine's case perfectly legitimately.  Luckily their cover designer kept good records of their image sources.

So be careful out there!

Paint n' Light

This weekend is the Tech for Kitchen Dog Theater's The Dumb Waiter by Pinter.

One of the exciting parts of our new theater home is that, because of the move, we discarded our old beaten down wall flats and constructed new ones!  Woohoo!

But even with brand new flats, it's tough to build a long, tall, straight wall and not show the seams.  Which has turned into a bit of a problem with this particular show.  So I've been painting like a fiend, one step behind the carpenter, trying to create a very mottled, distressed look on the walls - plus adding shreds of wallpaper - all to downplay the "look! it's made of 4' x 8' flats!" aspect.

The Dumb Waiter - photo by director Tim Johnson

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Here's the result so far - greatly enhanced by Suzanne Lavender's rich lighting.

Gotta run...

Production Photo

Just to give you an idea about how that fountain and the Dolphino I carved turned out, here's a photo taken opening night by my wonderful in-house photographer:

Photo of Circle Theatre's Lovers & Executioners - design by Clare Floyd DeVries

For the earlier post on this foam carving project, read HERE.

(BTW notice the delicate Delft style tile decoration around the fountain's spout?  I do love details.)

Building in Sand

Building sandcastles is one of the joys of the beach.

The Atlantic has a great article on one man's unique style of sandcastle... HERE

Image from Atlantic's post HERE (via BoingBoing.net) on Matt Kaliner's sandcastles

I say Matt Kaliner's sandcastles are "unique," but after this publicity I expect to see a few imitators... including me.  So beautiful!

The really important thing about sandcastles is that they never last.  (Rather like theater productions.)

Quick! One More Show!

I'm late getting this word out, but here it is:

By popular demand Fun House Theatre and Film has added one last show TONIGHT for A School Bus Named Desire.  Get yer ticket HERE.

And here's the thing (this question came up while talking up the show yesterday to adult actors), don't be fooled by the kids' theatre thing.  This is not a Shirley Temple experience, where the point is the cuteness of the children who act - this is acting, that necessarily is done by children.  The translation of the classic play A Streetcar Named Desire into its School Bus alter ego is clever - brilliant even and terrifically funny.  Translation makes the material suitable for children... but never cute-ifies it.  

 Why so late on the blogging?

Well, I was schlepping at Kitchen Dog at the Dumb Waiter build, then watching my Circle show, Lovers & Executioners open last night.  Another show well worth seeing! Plus, you know, sleeping, eating, car repair and stuff.  

But here it is children, your last chance to see the remarkable A School Bus Named Desire.

"They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, 

and transfer to one called Cemeteries,

and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!"

Tennessee Williams

Stupid Superstition

Theater people can be a bit... superstitious..

Of course they are!  Anyone who invests as much time, effort, money, ego etc. into an endeavor whose result - Smash Hit :)  or Turkey :(  - is mostly outside your control is going to believe in luck.  It's a thing.

The most famous of these superstitions is, of course, not speaking the name of That Play inside a theater.  (Or outside of a theater if you can help it.)  You know, the McPlay.  The Scottish Play.  And don't say the name of the principal characters either.  Call them "the Thane and his wife" or "the McBs" or something.

This is a superstition I don't particularly share, but some actors get so visibly upset when it's crossed that I go along.  When I remember.  (I've goofed and had to spin three times and spit and whateverall.)  No, I'd be happy to design The Scottish Play again.  It's Stephen King's Misery I balk at: I absolutely know that story, set in the aftermath of a car wreck, has nothing whatsoever to do with my totaling my truck driving home from that theater in the rain... but once is enough for me, thanks.

The one little silly theater superstition I do have - one I suspect I share, unadmitted, with a few other set-people - is that all really good shows n' sets get a little blood on 'em.  In ancient days a human sacrifice slaked mortar at foundations of great buildings or bodies were buried under stones, as at Stonehenge.  This seems barbaric and unnecessary today, of course, because, despite OSHA, nearly all major architectural or engineering projects cost a life or a serious injury anyway, even when trying not to shed blood.  Great construction takes its toll.

Anyway.

All My Sons took its blood and was a terrific show.  I stapled myself to the wisteria-draped set of Enchanted April and that was great.  A dancer sprained something for the wonderful Urinetown.  Now Lovers & Executioners, which has already claimed a broken toe (kicking the pile of research books counts as play-related, no?) has now collected a bit of blood from me too...

By golly! I demand apparent "broken bottles" on the top of that garden wall for this play about adultery, but I thought the plastic bottles I was breaking would be safer.

Silly me.

Vintage good luck card from Freestock.ca

The other famous theater superstition? Never say "Good Luck"!  Say "Break a Leg!"

Or, in this case, a Toe.