Siege - Day #4

I'm having some amazing phone conversations.

Texts and emails are great, but I'm rediscovering how nice it is to talk to someone at a distance.  Just had a long chat with another set designer friend... for almost the first time with no "show" stories.  (Well, a little showbiz, we are theater designers!)

Meanwhile, here at home, the taxes are progressing slowly as is the laundry.  It's too cool and wet to do garden chores, but maybe this weekend.  I'm thinking seriously about tomato plants now that I'll be here to water them properly.

I'm doing some thinking about the writing I have planned...

Playing a little Minecraft in the evenings:

A Minecraft scene: a wheat field in my farm district being crop-dusted by helicopter.

In the distance you can just make out the carroty buildings of the carrot farm with its wind-powered mill 

for making carrot juice.  I can be silly.

Minecraft in Creative Mode is, I think, the perfect designer addiction... endless possibilities and no gravity to worry about!

A while back I discovered You Tube Minecraft videos.  My favorites are Grian for building ideas and general silliness, Mumbo Jumbo for amazing redstone contraptions (a walking village!) as well as silliness (see them both on Hermitcraft) and fWhip for lovely terraforming and building.

One of the things I find interesting both in video and in Reddit's Minecraft building discussions is watching civilians (i.e. non-architects) discovering for themselves the elements of architectural design.  It's fascinating to me to see the general impression of "modern" architecture and the overall fondness for more or less medieval styles and, separately, for symmetry. The ambition is sometimes amazing!

Siege - Day #3

Well, yesterday was weird.  

I had a doctor's appointment.  Traffic was strangely light for a Wednesday afternoon.  All the parking lots I passed - retail or business office - were almost empty.  It was like an early Sunday morning.  At the medical office building, which is next door to a hospital, the parking lot was pretty full but (are you sitting down?) there were empty spaces near the door.  No valet parkers standing near their podium - because they were sitting inside, wearing protective gear and masks, next to the biggest bottle of sanitizer gel ever.  No one waiting for an elevator, but another bottle of sanitized hung by the buttons.  (I took the hint.)  No one in the upper lobby.  Only two patients in the waiting room.  (We gave each other 12 feet of separation.)  All the office staff was discussing was the virus.  

Then a perfectly normal doctor consultation.  (Knee problems I thought were due to theater wear n' tear up and down ladders etc. but turns out to be arthritis, yea!)  Much washing and decontaminating once I got home.

Tell you what...  I won't be moseying near medical places voluntarily again anytime soon.

Today is, so far, more washing and decontaminating, doing normal laundry plus clearing off much-used surfaces so they can be scrubbed more easily, more frequently.  And I'm trying to create a sort of Virus Mitigation Chamber in the front hall - just to keep all the cooties in one place.  A place to store things like briefcases and outdoor shoes and jackets and to wash down and power up phones and such.  (I haven't quite gotten to the wipe-down-all-groceries stage of paranoia but I'm sure I'll get there.)

Hark! The dryer is singing its chirpy little clothes-all-dry! tune...

On the theater business front the only action is on Facebook 'cause everything is canceled.  

Except taxes.  And distractions from taxes...

I work using the messy-desk/more ideas system.

General feeling on FB is that there might be the possibility of shows in September - maybe.  I have Young Frankenstein to read for then so - who knows? - maybe it'll still happen.

Siege - Day #2

The coronavirus is the big thing - the papers (both actual paper paper and e-) are full of it.

The Dallas County emergency order is in today's paper and there's something truly frightening to see in smudgy black and white where - in too much haste to retype the order? - the forbidding of gatherings of "500 persons or more" has been crossed out and amended to read "fifty."  Then the entire paragraph explaining that this does not apply to, for instance, office buildings has also been XXXed out.  (Which makes a certain architectural office I know that's refusing to let its employees work remote all the more maddening.  It's unsafe.)

So here I am, typing, self-isolating like a good girl.  

Yesterday  I did briefly shop for food - and toilet paper, ha! - and model building supplies.  Today I'll drop a couple pay checks at the bank only because I'm out for a doctor's appointment that, more and more, seems like a bad idea.  But theater can be pretty hard on knees.  In my case it's due to standing on ladders and stepping up and down and up and down onto stages raised juuuust a little too high for my short legs - some tendons or ligaments or something have stretched painfully once too often.  For a few years it's been an occasional problem, now it's sore almost daily.  Last week talking to a doctor about it seemed sensible... but today?

I also started the taxes, beginning with the tangle of my professional receipts.  Always depressing.  (Both the taxes and the tangle.)  

On the brighter side, I'm rereading Ben Aaronovitch's new Rivers of London novel, False Value.  It just came out last month after a long wait and it's good... maybe a bit dry though, sort of abstract, compared to others in the series, I think that's because he's setting up the next Big Bad for upcoming books and readers just can't have as much emotion invested yet as had accumulated in the earlier part of the series.  Also, the world of computing is just not as visceral as the first, shocking encounters with magic and Punch or the Faceless Man.  I still highly recommend his work, just be sure to start with Rivers of London.

I'm thinking of next rereading the new Stephen King, The Institute.  (I race through books the first time and enjoy catching more nuance on a second read).  But I'm looking around for a new novel - new to me anyway - preferably a series.  Have you noticed the usefulness of a really gripping, page-turning, long series when times are difficult?  I still have fondness for the Hunger Games books, simply because they engrossed me when I really needed distraction from a family health scare.  There's a line in another Stephen King book (Misery) that describes a writer "typing until he made a hole in the page he could fall into."  Well, a reader can certainly find the same escape hatch through the page, into the right book.  

(That quote is paraphrased probably.)

I've done another pretty sketch for The Silver Chain:

Castle Wyvern view - copyright retained by Clare Floyd DeVries and J. Trask 

I'm still looking at this one... it may get revised.  Perhaps it's a bit too cheerful and sunlit?  Then again, that's all the more contrast for the later, darker adventures.

At home we marked the first day of coronavirus seclusion (well, my first day because certain stupid offices are still open, endangering others) by  a tastey long-prep-and-cooking dinner and drinking wee little Coronitas.

When stocking up include beer.

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...?

It Always Comes To This...

Life / Work balance?

Good one!

No matter how carefully you try to schedule (and, really, how hard do we try?), there will always be weeks where The Show takes over your life.

Not only do the dishes not get done, but the Bard set dressing from the last show doesn't even make it all the way from your car to the garage prop storage.

Last week was the week of the Indian Show - a heads-down attempt to finish before opening.  Or at least 98.5% finished!  (The Cave scene turned out pretty cool.)

Go see The Royal Dilemma at ThinkIndia / MainStage Irving Las Colinas.

Upcoming...

at Stage West

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