What Goes Around... Goes Around Again

I'm working toward finishing a set for Uptown Players' upcoming End of the Rainbow... the 1969 suite at the London Ritz where Judy Garland stayed.  You know the kind of place: gilded furniture, crystal, flowers, fancy carpet, and gold-colored brocade on the walls.

Brocade that a good friend of mine, the late Wade Giampa, chose years ago for draperies in another fancy hotel suite in the play The Plaza Suite.

Set finishing for Uptown Players' End of the Rainbow

re-using Wade's brocade

Techs this weekend, opens next Friday!

Red (tape, rage) and... Blue

A weirdly emotional-roller-coaster couple of days here...

I've been finishing up a show.  As Opening approaches any theater company working frantically toward that goal can get a little over-tired and over-pressured.  A tad over-emotional.  The calmest of us can get... grouchy.  (Did I myself ever once actually briefly contemplate stabbing a carpenter with the scissors in my hand as I finished his job while he left for a lunch date?  Of course not.  Never.  Not me.)

Anyway.  You know that impassioned email you sometimes want to write at the end of a long frustrating day?  But you don't write it?  Or, if you do write it, you never ever send it?

Someone hit "SEND."

Reading that memo started my day: always good to know when you've crushed someone else's life-long love of theater.

Sigh.

public domain images modified - believed fair use

The rest of the day was filled with kind people going, "Fuggitaboudit."

So there was that.  Then there was the little snafu where a different theater discovered that the city's Certificate of Occupancy wasn't going to come through in time to hold this weekend's performances there so we had to move the show... leaving most of my set behind.

Deeper sigh.

The following meeting and phone calls on other shows went much better.  

But, honestly, the sub sandwich I had at The Great American Hero (on Lemmon Ave. try the "Healthy Hero") was the highlight of my lunch/dinner/onlymeal/wholeday.

Been Busy

Sorry, it's been hectic here at Scenic Central, so no posting.

But as a making-up-gift, how about some beautiful floors?  See them here:

Barcelona Floors
Venetian Floors
Parisian Floors

Photographer Sebastian Erras looks underfoot and discovers Treasures!  Beauties!  Marvels!

Photograph by Sebastian Erras from "Barcelona Floors" - CC - ND copyright

first seen at Designyoutrust

So what's been going on that's been keeping me so busy?

Mainstage Irving - Los Colinas' production of Kind Lady is teching this weekend, so I've been painting and fabric shopping etc.  I've been designing, redesigning, and modifying (not necessarily in that order) Under the Skin for Circle Theatre.  And creating construction drawings and starting the furniture hunt for End of the Rainbow at Uptown Players.

Phew!  Busy.

ADDENDUM:  How'd I miss these floors? Tile Addiction on Instagram by  Jose' Jo'vena and Elisabet Martinez HERE.

Calling All Stage Carpenters!

Uptown Players is looking for carps.

Contact Dennis Canright.  (Or me, and I'll pass you on.)

Bonus, you'd get to build my design for End of the Rainbow.  Woohoo!

Opening Night

Tonight is the opening for my latest show, Kitchen Dog Theater's regional premier of I'm Gonna Pray for You so Hard, by Halley Feiffer (directed by Lee Trull).

A fun show for me because I got to create - then trash - a nice cozy little Laura Ashley style NYC breakfast nook.  Or, rather, as one character triumphantly declares it, "an eat-in kitchen!"

Design and sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries, copyrighted of course

Besides adding clutter, there's a certain amount of "aging" which includes those lightly grubby marks where hands touch door or window frames and a little "roof leak" which helps explain my poor wallpapering... it's not lack of paperhanging skills it's a fictional moisture problem!  (So not my fault, right?)

Come n' see!  Excellently acted.

My earlier Clever Little Lies is still playing at Circle Theatre too.  Great reviews.

Or, if a theater - even in Fort Worth - isn't far enough out for you... how about Mars?  Or Europa?  NASA and JPL have just released absolutely Gorgeous! travel posters to space destinations, free, HERE.

NASA/JPL "Visions of the Future" space posters.

More frequent future posts coming.  

Hopefully.

New Years, New Fun Stuff to Do

Traditionally, this time of year is a chance to wrap up last year's business and start fresh with the next year's.  Oddly enough, my own Last Year did round off to a natural conclusion (except for tax-filing) and This Year's projects seem to be starting up promptly.  It's not always so tidy.  

So what's up for this year?

First on my board are designs for I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard at Kitchen Dog Theater (just now working on construction drawings), Clever Little Lies at Circle Theatre (just starting its build), and Kind Lady at Mainstage  Irving - Los Colinas (which needs me to Get Going!).  Probably the shiniest show I'm looking forward to so far is A Winter's Tale for Trinity Shakespeare this summer.  Summer Shakespeare in air conditioning!  What a concept!

First thing though is to clean up my studio so I can work.  During the holidays the room tends to become a dumping ground for wrapping paper, ribbon, and all-the-stuff-to-hide-from-company.  As studios do.

So what rounded out Last Year so nicely?  Kitchen Dog met its fundraising challenge!  It's only a first step, but it's a very BIG first step on the path to creating our own permanent home.

Every Dog's Home is its Dream Castle...

Fervent thanks to all those who helped us!  Sincerely.  We are so grateful.  

Now time to dig out my own ol' Dream Desk here...

Update on the Dog House Challenge

We're at 90% people!

Just need that liiiitttttle bit more to reach our goal and meet the ever-so-kind fund raising challenge grant.  So, if you have just an extra $1... please think of contributing toward Kitchen Dog Theater's new home before the end of the year: your single dollar bill can become $6, just like that!

HERE's the donation page.  

Here's the story: our hard-working (and award-winning) theater company recently lost our home of twenty years.  Our goal is to own our own performance space.  There are all sorts of possibilities - as an architect and designer I'm pretty excited.  But first we need to prove to our generous challenge backers that we can get our friends excited and raise actual money.  

I, personally, have donated.  Till it hurt.  So... please, as you clean up between the holidays, scrounge all the change you can find from under your sofa cushions and send it to us!  

Please Help the Dogs Find a Good Home.

No Spoilers

Have just seen the 8:20 a.m. showing of the new Star Wars.

Go buy your own ticket imeddiately! imeddiately!  im  Now!

Big happy Star Wars grin.