Picnic, 1987

By my fifth year at Brockport I can safely say that I had settled into my job with its added duties and was in the middle of what I call my second generation of students.

Brockport is a four year college but we get many transfer students who stay only two years.

Of course we have students who stay only one year and others who have been here for six or more years with time off here and there.

After some long and complex calculations I have decided that a generation of students is three years.

So after 31 years at Brockport I am in the middle of my 10^th generation of students.

I just made all of it up because every year, every semester is different with new students, returning students and a few that we are never sure about.

By the fall of 1987 all of the students who were here when I first came to Brockport were now gone.

As with most years we had production season that would offer a wide range of plays with many challenges and plenty of laughs.

Our production season for 1987-88 was: Picnic by William Inge, Tartuffe by Molière, Jitters by David French and The Last Baron of Arizona by Joanna Halpert Kraus.

 

 

 

Picnic was a fun production and I have many fond memories from working on it.

It was the last year for the scene designer and I think he wanted to go out with big and memorable sets and Picnic’s really filled the stage.

There were two houses on the stage and the main house had to have a second floor on the inside so we could see people walking by windows.

 

It was a great play for lighting as the play takes place during one day and we see light moments from early morning, afternoon, a sunset and evening.

At one point the actors actually stop, watch and comment on the sunset.

Most of the playing area was the front porch and yard of the main house complete with a stump and swing that was supposed to be hanging from some large unseen tree.

 

 

We did have a few not planned moments during the run.

Part of the action is there is suppose to be a trash burning barrel just offstage and an old can in the barrel explodes.

We used a big old metal barrel and fired a blank gun into it and it sounded great.

Although we did dump the trash out there was still a little sawdust in the bottom and it caught fire on opening night from the flash that came out of the starter’s pistol.

A quick thinking stage manger used a fire extinguisher to put out the fire and we all had a good laugh after the show.

That should have been the end of it except the second weekend of the show after the sawdust dried out, yes it caught fire again.

OK, it was more of a smoldering kind of thing, but you could smell it.

Again the stage manager put out the fire.

Of course since that time the college has removed all of the old water only fire extinguishers and I do not know if the new ones would work as well as the simple water filled ones.

 

 

I talk about the lighting in this play often in my classes and I like to use the example of the end of the play for my students.

The director wanted a single down spot on the stump that had the boots of the male lead who runs off without them.

I thought it would be a corny moment and would look silly.

But as I tell my students I could have done it one of two ways: first I could make it look bad and maybe the director would cut it or second I could do it the best way I knew how and hoped it would look good.

Well it still was a bit corny but it fit well in with the rest of the play and the audience loved it.

I made the right choice.

I use this as an example of working with the director and not fighting with him.

 

 

I wish I had better pictures of the show but my film was not processed right at the time.

The show had a good cast that worked well together and enjoyed working on the play.

Up next: Tartuffe