Interrupted By Work...

Sorry for this delay in Blogging Service.

I've had a rush of actual, you know, Work here and oddly enough it's delayed the writing about the work.  Strange.  Two successful Openings: of Ruth at Kitchen Dog Theater and Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower Theatre.  Meanwhile a heaping plateful of other deadlines are looming...

LOOMING I tell you!

Back to our Regular Blogging Service asap.

Crunch Time

Sometimes trying to get a theater set done before opening - and tweaked and fine tuned - is a real physical grind.

Tonight my knees are protesting all those ladder steps, I have a third degree hot glue burn on my left hand little finger, and I'm bone-weary after another long day following a partly sleepless how-to-fix-it? kinda night.

Little Nemo here also has a restless night - public domain image

Kitchen Dog Theater - New Works

It's that time of year - Kitchen Dog Theater's New Works Festival.

My show Ruth headlines!

But there are also lots of exciting readings of brand-spandy-new-plays by, you know, living writers.  Come listen.  Help develop the next Great American Drama!  (Besides, we throw great parties.)

More information on Kitchen Dog's website HERE.

Picasso's Studio

Now this is a studio!  Picasso's...

Picasso's studio - photo from Eye-Likely blog

More photos of his studio - plus a young Brigette Bardo HERE.  (My own, more humble version of a studio HERE.)

Sweeney Todd Video

A little YouTube tidbit about the Prague Playhouse production of Sweeney Todd, HERE.

Time Flies

There is never enough time!

Yesterday afternoon I spent "weathering" all the raw wood on the Ruth set to look like weathered fruit crates or pallets.  This meant washing the bright yellowish newness of natural pine or fir with dirty gray paint water.  I had a bucket of medium gray very washy paint, a bucket each of black and cream, and a bucket of it-started-out-clean water.  I'd wash the raw wood with the watery gray, then maybe swipe in a little black or a very little cream, so that each board varied in shade from its neighbors and changed tone a bit across its length.  Brush strokes followed the grain of the wood - which runs the length of each slat.

Weathered wood - public domain photo from Public Domain Photos

Fun and easy... but slow.

Earlier in this project we painted most of the slats en mass before incorporating them into the structure ("Slats" post HERE), but we needed more slats than just those so, by now, the set has a lot of raw wood.  About three hours' worth.

Which meant I didn't get to start the faux "concrete" floor because it wouldn't dry before rehearsal.  So I'll be painting that Monday.

BTW  that "concrete" look will be essentially the same grayish colors plus a little more brown, just applied differently: instead of streaked and wood grain-y, paint will be applied wet on wet and rather puddle-y with spattering into the still wet base colors, and letting some of the black stage floor show as cracks and discoloration.

I enjoy painting wet on wet... but it's hard to pull off on a large area like a stage floor.  It dries too fast.

Time is not the painter's friend.

Inspirational Photos

Sometimes when you're trying to find a design idea it helps to look around...

For some weeks now I've been trying to come up with a schematic design for Smokey Joe's Cafe, a sort of '50s musical revue(ish), or rather, an evening made up entirely of music - no book - that seems to be more unified than a typical random revue, yet has no strong story-line either.  Scenicly, it has a strong sense of Time, but not so much of Place.  Specific settings change, as they tend to in a collection of songs.  Ambiance, maybe, is what this show demands.

I find musical reviews difficult, since sound isn't my leading sense (I favor words and pictures) and my imagination tends to fasten on stories and specificity...

So I've been struggling.

The plan?  Oh, the plan was easy - I had it half sketched before I left the initial meeting with the director.  But the "look"... really tough.  All that came to my mind were '50s cliches not worth drawing up.  The only thing that seemed hopeful was the lovely name of the show: "Smokey Joe's."  There seemed promise, though in fact all I developed from that was badly doodled smoke curlicues on the edges of all my notes made in other shows' meetings.

So I've spent a while flipping through books or the Internet, researching, looking for a hint.

And on the morning I absolutely HAD TO FINISH, I finally found my inspirational photo:

Believed public domain photo - from Imprint

I won't include the sketch yet (if you can, please go see the set itself!  at WaterTower Theater), but the secret was the circle.  Smoke rings gave me the design nudge I needed for a good set for Smokey Joe's Cafe.

What else is up lately?  Busy, busy.  Lots of emailing on various shows; lots of shopping mostly for Boeing, Boeing at WaterTower which opens soon; and several hours painting on Ruth at Kitchen Dog which also Techs this weekend and opens soonest.

Follow-Up on a Site Design

A while back, I wrote a post about the spectacular new Tarrent County College in downtown Fort Worth, which opens up a view to the river below. (Earlier post HERE.)

Well, this month's Texas Architect magazine finally explained the circumstances behind this dramatic choice to carve out a river view... originally, the rest of the campus was going to be across the river!

But then the Radio Shack/Tandy property - a handsome corporate headquarters campus - became available... (Taking in lodgers as folks do when times turn tough.)  Suddenly it made more financial sense to keep the college all in downtown.  The new college buildings went from a grand entrance to a grand new campus, to a footnote to the main campus down the street.

The best laid plans...

Still, that cut-out view and the water garden are amazing!  I'm glad it happened.

Photo donated to the public domain

(The city intends to put in a pedestrian bridge across the river eventually, but there is a lot of river control work needed before that ever happens.)