Mauritius

Back in August I wrote about an upcoming play, Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, and that I was going to be working on and that I was going to be the Philatelic Advisor.

For a play about stamps it offered a number of unusual challenges.

Stamp collecting is not a young person’s hobby and I was not surprised that few of those working I play had any knowledge about stamps.

I met with both the actors and design team to educate then a bit about the stamps mentioned in the play, the world of stamp collecting and what a stamp shop might look like.

When I joined my local stamp club back in 1989 I was the youngest member and now over twenty years later I still am.

 

The director did a good job researching the stamps that “Star” in the play and gave that information to the actors, but I wanted to give the actors a bit more.

I wanted those who were suppose to be stamp experts look like they knew what they were doing.

I spent time with the actors giving them a basic history of the stamps in the play and showing them examples of them.

 I also introduced them to the basics of stamp collecting and worked one-on-one with the actor who played the stamp dealer to give him a little more instruction on how to handle stamps.

 

The scene designer did a good job designing a stamp shop and I provided many of the stamps and related material used to dress the set.

In addition the stamp shop there was a house set that sat side-by-side to the stamp shop on the stage.

The house set extended over to the side stage area and the designer fit the box door openings into the design.

 

My students worked hard and did a good job building the two large and detailed sets.

Perhaps my biggest surprise on this production was just how smoothly everything went.

I planned out the work schedule and it went well, we were finished on time and I even got to go out for dinner on opening night; a feat that I rarely get to do.

There were a few mess ups, some the students fault, some mine, but nothing too bad.

When we were painting the walls I found out that we forgot to build one flat and another was the wrong size, but it did not take too long to fix things and get things back on schedule.

The success that I have on each production is a result of the mixture of the number of students that I have, their skill level and most importantly their attitude.

If the students do not want to work on the play there is very little I can do.

I have found that it is best if I am honest with the students, I let them know what we are doing and why and try to mix up the fun work with the shit work.

There is always a need to clean up the shop, stage and/or the storage areas and moving heavy things from here to there.

If we need to move curtains and mop the floor for a music concert and then move the curtains back the next day to get ready for the next event I just let them know it has to be done and not make it seem I am punishing them.

I always give the students as much credit as I can for it is really them who build most of the sets.

Unlike when I worked on my first plays at Brockport when I did much of the work myself, I quickly learned that the students need to do it even if I could do it faster.

Once the students develop an ownership of a project they work better and harder.

The best example of that is when we do any metal work.

When we did A Midsummer’s Night Dream a few years ago I had a team of students who worked many extra hours outside of the regular shop hours on welding the frames needed for the show.

To get the students excited about the special projects is not too hard to do; the real trick is to get them excited about the importance of the regular work.

 

A group of eight people came from my stamp club to see the play and I gave them a tour of the stage after the show was over.

They were kind and said that they enjoyed the play; even though they found the language a bit rough and were a bit shocked by the fight scenes.

Although the play had very rare stamps as part of the plot, it was really greed and the money that the stamps could bring that drove the action of the play.

Mauritius "Post Office" Stamps
 

 

When I started my Blog I thought I was going to re-tell my life from the earliest plays to the newest, but as I have done several times already, stories of my current work just seem to come up and I want to share them with you.

I want my readers to know what is keeping my busy when there is a gap in my Blog postings.

West Side Story

In the summer of 1986 we did only one play instead of the two shows we had done my first three years at Brockport.

Our musical that year was West Side Story.

I had worked on the same show ten years before at Gateway Playhouse but I was eager to work on it again as I like the story and enjoy the music.

Although we did only one play we also had performance of Garth Fagan’s Dance Company that summer after the musical was over.

I had a good group of student workers and the set offered some interesting challenges.

 

Chain Link Fences.

Putting up a chain link fence is not too hard once you learn the basics, but when you cannot dig a hole and support the posts with concert that you need to come up with other solutions.

We welded up some diagonal supports with flanges that we could bolt to the floor.

Like many other good set pieces I have talked about in this Blog I still have some of them and use them from time to time.

Upstage of the main chain link fence was a structure that represented a bridge with fake “I” beams and steel girders in force perspective to make them look taller than they really were.

 

They were hard to put up but looked good once they were in.

There were small rolling platforms for the Dress Shop, Maria’s bedroom and Doc’s Soda Shop.

I large flying wall came in to cover the fence for the dance at the Gym.

In place of the main curtain there was also a flying fence section that played at three different heights depending on the scene.

For the big rumble scene the front fence was all the way to the ground and the audience had to look through it.

 

The fire escape platform and Maria’s window unit was built into the stage right box closest.

I do believe that I still have some part of that set unit but I know some of it was modified for other productions.

I am sure that there must have been some other set pieces but I do not remember them.

Many in the cast were Theatre or Dance students from Brockport but a few others were mixed in.

A young 16 year old kid from Buffalo was in the show, Jesse L Martin.

He went on to star in Rent on Broadway and then spent ten years on TV’s Law and Order.

More about him can be found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0552509/

Other members of the cast also went on to work in “Professional” world; Jesse had the biggest success, so far.

After the play was over and while working on the dance concert I somehow found the time to buy a new car.

It was my first really new car, a black 1986 Ford Escort GT.

I liked it, it got 40 miles to the gallon on the highway and I had it until 1993 when I traded it in for a new white1993 Ford Escort GT.

Although the Escorts were small they had more room to move things for work than my 1977 Camaro.

 

 

A Little Night Music

Our last show of the season was the musical A Little Night Music with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler.

It’s a nice show with great music and I think we did a very nice job with it.

Complaints?

I always have a few issues with how things are run and with this my major problem was that all four of the major leads were not students but either faculty or outside professionals.

I always feel that as a college we are here for the students to learn and I like to see them do as much as possible.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with a guest artist or two, but when all of the leads are non-students I wonder if we chose the right play to do.

 

The students did fill out all of the secondary roles and I had a student Technical Director.

But with that said we did not have any students who could have done the parts and the production came off very well.

A Little Night Music

 

 

The set was fun, mostly black and, well not white but more black and a touch of silver and lots of plastic.

The flats and false proscenium were covered with clear plastic and covered with cutout ply in a leaf and vine Art Nouveau style.

There were not too many special things to make for this play but I did make a small fake upright piano that was used over and over many times after the play.

The orchestra was designed to be upstage of the main set behind, yes even more sheets of plastic.

This was a year after The Fantasticks another set that was mostly plastic sheets.

 

This was the first time we ever tried to use video cameras and TV monitors to run the image of the conductor from upstage so the actors could see him and get their cues.

We hide a small monitor in what looked like an old fashioned prompter’s box downstage center.

Each act started with a tableau with the actors behind a black scrim posed in a way to reflect what was going to happen next.

It was not all easy and I know we had a few problems but we got through it and the audience enjoyed the show.

 

So this was the end of my forth year at Brockport and first as both the Technical Director and Lighting Designer.

It was a bit crazy but I got through it and in the following years some seasons would be easy and others a bitch.

The challenges, problems and even the aggravations are what make working in Theatre so much fun.

* * *

Scapino

My next production in the spring of 1986 was Scapino a modern adaptation of the classic play Les Fourberies de Scapin by Moliere's and written by Jim Dale and Frank Dunlop in 1974.

Broadway Playbill 1974

It is a physical comedy with lots of action.

The most unique part of this production was the design of the set.

The entire stage was covered with platforms with a house structures on either side of the stage complete with balconies.

I think we used most of our stock platforms and built many more for this show.

There was a large round cutout in the center section of the platform that mimicked a circus ring.

Upstage of the main platform we set up the risers and the 100 seats from the Lab Theatre across the hall and had audience members seated on both sides of the set.

The set was colorful and there were several café tables on the platforms and members of the audience were invited to sit at them and during the play and they were served Cokes.

In the front section of the platforms that were built out over the first few rows of the regular seats, there was an opening that became a waterless moat complete with a rowboat.

Three of the theatre’s scenery batten pipes were brought down and ran between the two house sets.

An actor walked along the pipes as if it were a tightrope during the play.

The pipes were brightly painted and still have some of their color 25 years later.

Our production was fun in spite of a lead actor who turned out to be a dud.

He could not act or do any of the physical comedy bits that had to be given to two other actors who were happy to do it.

The “Stunt” doubles got to use a pogo stick, ride a unicycle, run, tumble and other fun things during the show.

Either of those actors would have been a better choice for the lead instead of the one the director picked, but he later said that he saw something in the actor during the audition that he never saw again.

During one rehearsal an actor jumped off of one of the balconies and smashed into one of the platforms breaking it apart.

I was never told the actor was going jump from 8 feet down.

When I rebuilt that section of the stage I made sure it was much stronger and it survived the rest of the run.

* * *

Updated 3/3/18

Still Working Hard

 

Still working, always busy and the Blog take a back seat for a while. 

I always think that I will write more than I do.

Current school year is going well and we open “reasons to be pretty’ next week.

Thought I would post a few photos of the current work and some random copies of some class work I did back in college.

I still have plenty of stories to tell and with each new production more anecdotes are added to my many tales.

Crew working on Stud Walls for the Set

Tools are Important



Some tools taste good

 

 

A rehearsal onstage



 

I recently found these things I did back in college:




Scene Design for the Merry Wives of Windsor

 

Scene Design for The Medium

Study in Light for The Medium

 




Just some class project

In the next Blog I will get back on track and tell about working on Scapino, a fun play with a unique set.

***

 

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker, you all know the play, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan.

It is always a popular play and has been a good money maker and we did several student matinees that were all full.

In recent years we have not had too many student matinees as schools no longer have any money for field trips.

So the big scenic item on this play is of course the water pump which needs to really work for the big break through scene at the end.

It is not too hard to do, just a real pump mounted on a wooden box with a short pipe that goes down into a 5 gallon pail of water.

Once it is primed and working it was no problem.

Thinking back now I think this was our first show in the fall and Miss Julie was the second play, unlike I wrote in a previous entry.

The water pump was used again for Miss Julie after being bought for The Miracle Worker.

I thought I had programs from all the plays I have worked on but it turns out that I am missing a few here and there.

The programs help me fill in names and dates and help me remember things about the shows.

So do I have any stories about this show, of course I do.

The set had two levels with the bedroom on the upper level.

After I built the platforms and they started to rehearse on them they found that the audience could not see the cradle that was suppose to hold the baby Helen Keller.

It was decided that lower the platform but instead of taking it apart, removing the legs, cutting them and putting it all back together I decided to cut the legs in place.

After marking the legs a foot or so up from the floor and used a circular saw and started to cut the legs from one end.

When I was about halfway done the platform tilted over and raised the uncut legs up in the air which made them easy to trim.

I am not sure how I cut the middle legs without killing myself , I think we just pushed in a few longer legs to lift it all up just enough to get it done, but it did not take too long to do.

Not one of my brightest ideas but it was fast.

Once the platform legs were cut down, the rest of the set offered few additional problems.

Now if you know the play you are aware that there is a cute scene with a dog that is part of the play in which Helen tries to teach it to read sign language.

Animals and children onstage, always fun.

After the play with found nice piles of crap backstage.

Whoever was supposed to take care of the dog did not do a good job.

The scene designer had arranged a tour of the theatre for his 9 year old daughter’s class but then could not be there so I ended up doing it.

I was not sure what to expect but the group of kids who came were great.

One of my students who was also acting in the play helped me with the tour and we were able to answer most of their questions about the play.

I brought them up on the stage and showed behind the set and had them touch the walls which were still made of canvas at that time.

The biggest question the students had was they wanted to know why everything on the set was painted brown; walls, props, paintings and furniture.

I told them that the designer wanted to show the audience how Heller Keller, who was blind, saw the world: shapes but no color.

The kids seemed to think that was cool and they asked about many other questions and wanted to know how everything worked.

When I had one of the students run the main curtain up and down and they all enjoyed that too.

A week or so later I got a big box of thank you letters addressed to me and my student thanking us for the tour.

It was a very nice feeling.

Soon after meeting with the elementary school kids I gave more or less the same tour to a group of college students and they could care less.

Nothing I said or showed them impressed them at all.

They did not ask questions and just wanted to get out of the theatre as soon as they could.

Not a good crop of students that year.

We would do the play again thirteen years later, and yes we used the same pump.

I was just down in our storage area last week giving a tour to a guest scenic designer and I saw the pump, just hanging in the prop room waiting for the next time we do The Miracle Worker.

It has been fourteen years so I guess we are due to do it again soon.

I will let you know when and if we do the play again.

Classes start again this coming Monday and I am interested to see which students will be returning and what new students we will have.

It is always a surprise.

 .

Mauritius “Post Office” Stamps Onstage

I have been a stamp collector for fifty of my fifty-six years and I have also been involved in Theatre for forty years.

In my collection I have many Theatre themed stamps and covers but only on a few rare occasions have I been able to use my knowledge of philately while working in Theatre.

I have provided copies of old stamps and covers for use on the stage only a handful of times.

I teach classes in Theatre Design and Technology at The College at Brockport and this fall our second production will be Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck.

For the first time ever I will be working on a play in which valuable stamps are a major part of the plot in which action revolves.

The two stars of the play are the one penny and two pence “Post Office” stamps printed in Mauritius 1847.

Some of the “Co-stars” are the US Zeppelin issues of 1930, the high value Columbians of 1893 and of course what play about famous stamps would be complete without a guest appearance of the Inverted Jenny of 1918.

There are references to most of the other of the great valuable stamps of the world in the play.

As a long time stamp collector it seems to me that the play almost writes it’s self: A person dies and leaves the stamps to heirs who are not sure about their value and tries to sell them without being ripped off.

There is a stamp dealer of dubious ethics, fighting relatives and greedy others. Lies, plotting and fights; an excellent evening of Theatre.

I write this in August the play is still months away as but we have already had early production meetings to start work on the play.

In addition to being the Technical Director in charge of building the set I also serve as the philatelic advisor trying to explain the world of stamp collecting to the rest of the production team and the actors cast in the play.

Many collectors will never see or own those super valuable of the stamps in the play but if we are lucky we may see them at a major stamp show or in a museum.

I know some collectors who do have some very nice and expensive stamps in their collections but I know of no one with either of the Mauritius stamps or the Inverted Jenny, although I do have a nice reproduction of the C3a that I got on Ebay for $10.

So what happens in the play?

Who gets the stamps?

You can find out for yourself  December 30 – December 8, 2012.

Details and ticket info; http://www.brockport.edu/theatre/current.html.

Miss Julie - "What a Life"

The fall of 1985, My forth year at Brockport, would be my first year as both the staff Technical Director and Lighting Designer.

Our season that year was: Miss Julie, The Miracle Worker, Scapino and A Little Night Music.

Miss Julie by August Strindberg was produced in our smaller Black Box Theatre and directed by Oh Kon Cho.

The set was designed by a student and had been entered in the American College Theatre Festival which meant that the production, if selected, would have to tour.

I think this have been the first set that I built that was all hard covered flats instead of traditional canvas ones.

We used only hard covered walls when I worked in the photo studio but up to this point working in Theatre I had only used hard covered, or Hollywood Flats, for smaller special units.

Miss Julie

The floor was covered with 1 foot square tiles made out of Masonite with a 45 degree bevel on each edge.

Putting the bevels on was a pain and very messy and was done long before a sawdust collector in the shop.

Like most set pieces we saved them and used them again about four years later for the floor in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

We had to make about a third more for Jimmy Dean and of course we still have them and they have been used many times over the years and have paid for themselves many times over.

I even lent them out once for a tour that went to a museum and they glued Velcro on the bottom so that they would stick to the carpet that on the floor.

Both the show was good and the set were good but it was not selected to go to the festival.

One of my favorite moments of the play was when the director, Dr. Cho, could not get Jeff, who played Jean, to give him the line reading he wanted.

I remember it as if it was yesterday:

Dr Cho: Jeff say “What A Life.”

Jeff:      “What A Life.”

Dr Cho: No say “What a life.”

Jeff:      “What a life.”

Dr Cho: No say “What a Life.”

 Jeff:     “What a Life.”

Dr Cho: No say “What A life.”

Jeff:      “What A life.”

Jeff could not hear what intonation that Dr. Cho wanted neither could anybody else.

Needless to say poor Jeff was at a loss as what to do.

Now I will admit here that I am not an acting teacher, coach or expert, but later I tried to work with him.

I told I was not sure what he wanted but if he said it like he meant it the audience would get it.

Running away to live with the rich and beautiful Miss Julie; “What a Life”.

In the middle of the play when Jean and Miss Julie are off having sex in the back peasants or local workers come in and have a party and dance about.

The daughter of one of the dancers was one of my work study students this past year.

Time does fly.

* 

Emily Dickinson

In the spring of 1985 before starting working on Peter Pan, Richard the scene designer asked me to help him on an outside project he was working on.

Richard was a unique individual, some called him odd, and he knew a wide range of people.

One day just outside my office Richard introduced me to Derek Wolcott, the Noble Prize winning poet, who was a friend of his.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Walcott

I do not know why he was there, what he was doing and I am sure the college would have loved to have him speak while he was in town, but Richard never thought in that way.

Somehow got hooked up working on a film documentary series and convinced them to film it in the Rochester area.

The film was going to be part of the PBS series Voices and Visions which featured the lives of American poets and this was to be the Emily Dickinson episode.

Link to online video, it is poor in quality but you can still get an idea of what we did: http://www.learner.org/resources/series57.html#

Emily Dickinson

At first I was asked just to make some simple furniture pieces needed for one of the scenes but soon I ended up on location helping out and doing much more.

The documentary was film in several locations in the Rochester area.

We filmed in several historic homes, a museum village and the building fronts of a local small town.

We used the Morgan-Manning House in Brockport, The Leroy House and its Carriage House, three buildings at the Genesee Country Village and Museum, the town of Lima, NY and several homes in the Corn Hill section of Rochester.

Extras in Costume

I assisted the designer on set doing many small things but my duties would greatly increase as Richard would disappear and I was asked to make decisions and fix problems on the spot.

Shooting in front of a house on Atkinson Street in Rochester, we added shutters to the inside of some windows, made the doorbell disappear with a little tape and spread 20 bags of peat moss over the modern street.

A horse and carriage was set to ride up to the house and several actors would get out and go into the house.

The cinematographer asked me to remove a No Parking sign that was in the way of a shot and as me and the other assistant George, who now works here at Brockport, tried to pull it out I was surprised as a cop came over.

I thought he was going to yell at us but he just helped us pull it out of the ground.

During the shooting I was given a Walkie-Talkie and asked to stop traffic on Plymouth Avenue, the main cross road.

So just out of sight of the film crew around the corner I stepped into the road with my trusty Walkie-Talkie put up my hand and stopped traffic.

I thought people would protest and be pissed, but when I told them that we were making a movie they all thought it was cool.



Film Crew

I quickly found out that when you are working on a movie you can get away with many things and people treat you as if you are special plus the food is much better than the doughnut or two you might get in a Theatre load-in.

In Leroy we filmed in both The Leroy House and its Carriage House.

We used several rooms in the old Carriage House, one was used as a Boston photographer’s studio and another became a 19^th century school room.

A dinner scene was filmed in the main house.

At the Genesee Country Village and Museum we used at least three of the buildings.

It is a wonderful place with over 40 buildings and many costumed interpreters that give you a nice depiction of what life was like back in 19^th century.

http://www.gcv.org/

We filmed in George Eastman’s boyhood home, the Hamilton House and one of the three churches.

It was in the Eastman home that the furniture that I built was going to be used.

In a scene the actress playing Emily Dickinson was to light an oil lamp.

Simple enough.

The designer gave me some fuel and asked me to fill the lamp but when I looked down I saw that he had given me a can of Coleman Fuel or what is commonly called WHITE GAS!

If you put gas in a bottle with a rag, or in this case an oil lamp with a wick, the result is a basic Molotov cocktail!

One little drop and B A N G !

Knowing that we had some back at the school I drove back and picked up the lamp oil.

Oh course the battery in the van they gave me was close to death so I pulled the battery out of my old Javelin and put it in the van so that I could finish the job.

This was in the time before cell phones so having a dead battery and being on the side of the road miles from home was not fun.

Later when filming in the Hamilton House the designer had me fill two oil lamps hanging on the wall and light them for one of the scene.

Hamilton House

One hundred year old, untested lamps, what could go wrong?

Fortunately nothing did and neither house burned down, but I am sure the people at the museum would have burst a gasket if they knew what we had done.

Guess they will never have us back now.

We also filmed in one of the churches and I got to be a sound assistant for that one.

I got to hold the boom microphone over my head for a while during the shooting.

Yes your arms start hurting right away and I was happy I was just filling in for just a short time.

The film crew took over the whole downtown of Lima, NY for a day and a half of filming.

The designer and I came in the night before to start prepping the town by putting up 19^th century business signs that we had made to cover the modern signage.

We got to stay in a funky old hotel and have a few drinks with some of the colorful locals.

http://www.americanhoteloflima.com/

The stores were paid to be closed all day and the film producers took over a local restaurant to feed the crew during the long day of shooting.

We laid down wood planks over the sidewalks and the peat moss was used for a second time to cover the street.

Fortunately I did not have to re-bag the peat moss this time as a local farmer watching us work offered to take it away when we were done.

As what would be the case with at least half of what we shot, none of the filming from Lima was used in the final film.

We did use the film shot in front of a local bible college for another scene of people arriving by horse and carriage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elim_Bible_Institute

In front of the Bible College

That was a simple set-up and went very fast.

There was a nice wrap party at a local bed-and-breakfast that the producers were used as their home base during the shoot.

It was almost a year before the whole project was finished and our episode made it to TV.

The film is still re-run from time-to-time of some of the educational channels.

It was nice to see my name flash by in half a second during the end credits.

I was surprised to see that another person named Musante had worked on the film but I do not remember meeting them or if I did our family name never came up.

In all I worked in about twelve different locations for the film and I know that they filmed in several more.

There was a very tight filming schedule and it was always a bit crazy, but still it was lots of fun.

 ***

Shakespeare Lady

In the Blog before last I was telling my faithful readers about the many extra events and projects that have kept me busy over the years but I forget to talk about some them and before I try to get back on my regular timeline I thought that I would try to catch up a bit.

Maybe by the time I write this all in book form I can put it in the right order but I can assure you that for the rest of this Blog I will jump out of order whenever it suits me and get back on my year to year path when I can.

Maybe.

Back in my very first year at Brockport, and within weeks of starting, my chairman came to me and told me that he was bringing in an outside show, an acting couple would do a play about the Shakespearean actress Fannie Kemple called Shakespeare Lady.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kemble

The two actors were member of the Royal Shakespeare Company but this production was their own work.

It was not done in one of our two Theatres but on the small stage of the New York Room which is in Cooper Hall, the old campus school.

For the show I had to extend the stage  and used four to six  4x8 platforms and had them shipped over from the Theatre Building along with some other needed equipment.

The small stage had 10 PAR can lights and several household type rotary dimmers, which 29 years are still in use.

I focused the built-in lights plus a few more of our lights that I had brought over from the Theatre.

I taped some gels on a few of the lights and they left them on for years until the taped dried out and they fell off.

The lighting was simple with few changes.

It was not done as Dinner Theatre but as Dessert Theatre.

Rich Chocolate cake, Cheesecake smothered in cherries . . .

People liked the show but it did not make enough money.

Some years later some “New People” came in tried this kind of show again and they had the same limited success.

These “New People” came in, had new ideas, they know better than me and because they are not willing to learn from history, they were doomed to make the same mistakes.

If only they would just listen to me, believe what I say, I remember everything and I am never wrong.

Unfortunately people are not willing to pay the same price for a high quality Theatre or Music event in Brockport as they would in downtown Rochester.

Someone must have done a study at some time of Arts Snobbery between Urban and Suburban venues.

We are happy for the loyal audience members who do come to our events and enjoy them and the money they save. 

Just before the end of my third year and before the start of Peter Pan I had arranged to buy my sister’s 1977 Camaro.

I wrote about the car back in an August 2011 Blog entry;

http://viewsfrombackstage.blogspot.com/search?q=camaro

My sister just had a baby and another on the way and because it is hard to get a baby seat in and out of Camaro I offered to take it off her hands so she could get a van or some big ugly sedan.

Just before I went back to Long Island my old Javelin blew its transmission.

Before I had the Javelin towed to the junk yard a piece of it was able to help me on my next job, the story of which is coming up in the next Blog

Not having much time I flew in, bought the car, got it registered and then drove it back up to Brockport.

The worst part of it all, the DMV on Long Island; hours of waiting to talk to people who do not care and could not work any slower.

The car was fast, fun to drive but it was always in need of something being fixed and as it turned out I would buy a brand new car the next summer. 

Every time I think about all the many different types of events and theatrical productions I have worked on I always seem to forget one or two.

As I have been writing this Blog entry I have been doing a job I have had to do many times before, babysitting the Theatre.

Currently here at the college we are having one of the 5 sessions of freshman orientation and they are using the Theatre.

My student assistant has done much of the set up and because of our new lighting system we can pre-program the house light switches so some basic stage lighting looks can come up without having to have someone, me, turn on and run the lights from the booth.

The orientation staff runs most of it by themselves and I am here “just in case” and to lock up at the end of the night.

My job is so exhilarating and crazy at times but this is not one of them.

A truly fun experience is coming up next.

The Good Doctor

So where was I . . .

The second play in the summer of 1985 was The Good Doctor by Neil Simon.

It is a series of about ten short vignettes based on the stories of Anton Chekhov.

For this production I would serve as the scenic designer and technical director.

For a play to be produced in August I began working on it six months earlier.

Because of the many scenes I had to work out how we could build and fit all the scenery on the stage and did many sketches most of which I still have.

The Audition

I had planned for platforms to in and out from upstage, both stage right and stage left and diagonally from upstage right and upstage left.

These platforms would have fixed castors and roll in mostly straight lines guided by tracks that we cut into the floor.

Well it did not work as well as I had hoped.

The Sneeze

This was back in time when we still used canvas flats and because I designed many of the walls in forced perspective; most of the walls were custom made.

The play was lots of work but I think it looked good when it was done.

I have many more drawing then I have posted here but cannot find any show photos at this time and will update my Blog if I can find them.

We had an outside lighting designer for this production and as is often the case I was not happy with the lighting of my set.

I like it when I can design both the sets and lights for a show, but it is not always possible or my choice.

As a lighting designer I hope that the many scenic designers I have worked with over the years feel that I have done their set designs justice and have not hated my work.

I always try my best but know that I have had a few duds along the way.

By my third summer in Brockport I felt comfortable and really in charge and that most of the students were “my” students and working along with  and for me and not talking always talking about how it was done before I got there.

We did not get to work on the fireworks show that summer but still had a good time.

This was the last year that we did two summer shows but there was still plenty of work in the years ahead.

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