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.
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| 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.
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