Cyrano de Bergerac, 1989

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand was a big undertaking for us.

It had 30 people in the cast, period costumes and multiple sets.

This was only the second show here for Drew the scenic designer and very different from Jimmy Dean.

The large set had several rolling platforms that made up a stage-within-a-stage and balcony unit and there were also multi-use tall platforms upstage that framed the action.

A wire cable ran across the stage and a lightweight white curtain that was drawn open at the start of the play by four Mask characters.

All of the costumes were great but the four all white satin Mask costumes were extra special. 

Cyrano de Bergerac, 1989

We had a guest director for the play who did a very nice job.

There was something a bit odd about him at times and most of us did not know that he was dying of Aids at the time.

He had lots of great ideas but from time-to-time he just seemed to give up and would not push for what he wanted.

I heard that he managed to finish working on the next play after ours but died about six months later.

Aids has taken too many people including too many of my classmates from college.

A few years ago a friend from college gave me a list of those who had died and it saddened me greatly.

The recent production of The Normal Heart on HBO brought back memories of those I have worked with who are lost.

http://www.broadwaycares.org/

On a brighter note the show was fun to work on.

Sword fighting!

The students loved it and for a number of years they paid to hard the combat instructor come back to give lessons which would pay of big time when we would do Romeo and Juliet a few years later.

I really enjoyed doing the lighting especially the evening scenes.

I was very happy with the moonlight wash and gobos that I used.

I was also thankful that the actors knew how to use the light and would move into the small pools of light when they wanted to been seen and fall back into the shadows when they did not want to be seen.

It seems a simple thing to do, but often actors have no sense of the light when they are onstage.

Drew made some prop candelabras with small penlight flashlights that were pretty cool but I think now how much easier and brighter they could be with the new LED lights, but this was 25 years ago and we worked with what we had and often managed to have great results

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So during one of the dress rehearsals there was a nice evening scene in which  Roxana came out with a lantern with a candle in it.

It had glass on three sides with one open.

As I watched the scene I saw that the open side was facing the actress and that her dress was too close to it.

I jumped up on the stage and moved the lantern away.

Before the next rehearsal I had put a door on the open side of the lantern.

I had seen Cyrano de Bergerac when I was in Paris back in 1972 and I wrote about it in the earlier post:

“While in Paris a group of us went to the Theatre.

 We went to the Comédie-Française and saw Cyrano de Bergerac.

 The theatre was beautiful, the stage was wonderful, the play was great and I didn’t understand a word.

 Because I really could not understand but a few words of the play I focused on closely watching the sets and lighting.

 The end of the play was classic; strong lighting and leaves slowly floating down as Cyrano died.

 I had to smile 15 years later when we did the same thing for our production at Brockport.”

Sometimes I wonder how we did some of the bigger shows, but when I look over the program and see the names of who we had working back then I know had we did it.

We often have good hard working students but some years we clearly have a few more exceptional students and we are able to do more and this period was the start of one of those special periods.

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