The DRC

In building and loading in the set for Ruined, the mantra in the shop slowly became, "That's okay, it's the DRC." DRC, of course, standing for Democratic Republic of the Congo where this show takes place. The set is the bar/brothel of a woman whose trying to play both sides of a civil war. The designer gave us his research and made sure to let us know that fine carpentry was not to be expected and would be unfitting for this location. So we needed to remind ourselves not to take too much time on these set pieces, after all, it's the DRC.

Pardon the ladders, but you can get a good idea of what the designer meant by letting the carpentry skills slide. The bar is supposed to look like it's being held together by a couple of screws, much like... well, a set for a theater.

The worn appearance that the designer was going for gave us a chance to go into the old scrap bin and pull out the rough cut and bowed pieces to make these partitions walls, which actually consist of a door and some fencing the owner must have found and thrown up to make a room.

The ceiling is made of corrugated plastic painted to look like steel, although we also use corrugated steel on some of the walls. To make sure they matched, the painters painted both surfaces in the same style. The ceiling is actually rigged up to the theatre pipe grid, though the ceiling itself is actually pretty light being plastic.

And then backstage, we cornered the band platform with what we've been calling 'waddle.' In Africa, they'll actually weave vines and branches to form walls, but for us, it was old used cotton rope weaved around some tree branches to achieve the same effect.

I really like this set. Though it doesn't have our usual automation features, it's still very pleasing to the eye. The many levels gives the director a lot to play around with and allows for scenes to be more separated even in this, our smallest theater. Next up, a donut shop, and though it's not in the DRC, we may find ourselves carrying our mantra over to the Space theater to make sure this shop looks old.

The Final Set

And so come the last three shows of the season. At this point one is open, another is deep in tech rehearsals, and the third will be moving in over the next few weeks. The end of the season seems to come by so quickly, but when you're work load is constant like it is in the theatre, that just seems to be the way it goes.

Traces is actually a touring acrobatic show put on by the French Canadian company called 7 Fingers. We pretty much set up the stage for them and then let them take over. We have been able to do a couple modifications for them, but for the most part, it's their show. Click here for more info.

Ruined is a very powerful play about a woman trying to walk the fence of the Congo civil war. It's a very dark play, and the set resembles that taking on the rough, found material qualities that the Congo is sadly know for. The show is pretty much loaded in and is in rehearsals. Click here for more info.

Superior Donuts takes place in an aging family-owned donut shop on it's way out. It's a fairly fitting play to do in today's world as we see the 'dirty spoons' of the old world turning into 'clean and green' shops of today. Right now we're in the process of laying in the tile for the shop. Click here for more info.

The Forest Temple pt. 2

I was able to get a couple pictures of the two temple pieces while they were together so I thought I'd throw them up here so you could see the piece as a whole.

We've actually taken down the piece at this point. We cleared the deck for the Traces crew to set up their show. Cutting down fake trees is a whole lot easier then cutting a real one, though a chain saw may have been more fun to use.

The Forest Temple

If I had to break down what I've been up to the last two months, I'd say the wagon in Midsummer Night's Dream has taken up the most time. This is a case proven by the fact that one of the last entries I did was for the construction of the tree columns for the unit. So now, all these days later, I can show you a completed project.

Probably the easiest way to explain this guy is by showing you what we based it off of. This is the model the designer sent to us and was basically what we had to go off of in terms of the look. The structure was all planned out by the bosses, but the trees were pretty much up to us. So, as you can see, the wagon starts out as one piece with all the the columns and the pediment evoking the Athenian setting of the play. Then...

The wagons split open to reveal the forest and the scaffolding on the inside. So the elements of the piece are made up of the wagon platform, the scaffolding, the tree columns I discussed earlier, and the pediment which I have been working on for a bit now.

We did get to do a minor test set up in the shop, but due to the detail and a scheduling conflict with paints, we didn't get to put the pediment up in the shop.

But it ended up looking pretty good. I took a couple pics to show you, but haven't had a good opportunity to show the piece when it comes together. Maybe later.

-Late

The Midsummer Night's Dream

It's been a while, I know, but it's not due to lack of interesting things to show, it's been do to lack of focus. The last two months have seen me working on five different shows. Most of which are now nearing completion. I've been putting up vacu-form bricks on walls for Map of Heaven, routing out plexi-glass holders in the deck for The Catch, building a bookcase for Ah! Wilderness, loading and prepping a deck for Five-Course Love, but mainly I've been working on Midsummer Night's Dream on our main stage.

So, here it is. First of all, the deck had to be completely redone. We took out all the elevators, which I had helped to install almost 2 years ago, and replaced the normal deck with the exception of the pool, which I helped build, and the hidden trap entrance under the grass, which I helped install. The floor is a faux marble finish with a couple plexi-glass boxes that light up on the sides. The drapes are faux-contra-cloth painted blue and hung on opera netting. The blue stairs all the way up center are on a track and can recede underneath the ramp that curves around the back of the stage. Quite a bit of work...

The big wagon units are kind of the main focus but I'll get to those next entry. To give you an idea of how fast things can change in theatre, the scaffolding on the forrest wagons originally had ladder going up the fronts to help the acts climb them. Upon a quick test run with the actors, the ladders needed to be removed in order to let them roam freely over the construction. Apparently it didn't fit the characters to climb ladders. Easy fix.

We're getting closer and closer to the end, but we still have a handful of shows to build. Hopefully, I can keep up with the photos.

Late.

The ???

Can't really go into too much detail on these projects, but I thought I'd share them anyway cause they just look so cool. I'd tell you what they're for, but then I'd have to... well, you know..

The Forest

So we've been loading in Reckless all week, and I've been mainly working on my elevator/phone booth. But since I didn't get any pictures of the booth in the space, I thought I'd show you what I worked on the week before for Midsummer's Night Dream.

These 'trees' are made up of 1/4 inch pencil rod steel that we've bent and twisted to create the branches of the trees. The trees themselves sit inside some see-through columns so that when the columns rotate, the trees will be completely visible from the back.

There will be a pediment on top of the columns and on top of that we'll see the trees branching out with these top pieces.

Paints is starting the process of covering our metal skeletons. First they fill the branches with news paper.

Then they coat them with good ole' plaster of paris.

This project was actually pretty fun to work on, though there were many space limits do to the columns, we still got a chance to create a little bit.

Late