Monday, February 29, 2016

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Dec 1992


For A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum the scene designer and I switched jobs as I designed the set for the production.
It was a lot of fun and we had some unique problems to solve.
The set design itself was rather straight forward and offered few challenges except where to put the orchestra.


The Brockport mainstage has an orchestra pit and has been used many times but the director wanted the actors closer to the audience so I designed a pit cover the would go over the pit.
There was a cutout downstage center for the conductor and a few of the musicians had to sit down under the stage.

We would use the pit cover a few times over the years, Hair in 2008 and in 2010 when we did A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum again.
I designed in four grills so the orchestra could have a feel for what was happening above them and to let out a bit of the sound.

The pit reused in 2010
The "Air' Grills


At the time I told everyone that the grills were to let fresh in into the pit.
I was lucky that the scene designer and his students painted the set for me.
I was more than able to paint the paint elevations but do not know if I could have paint the whole set as well as fast as they did.


My painters elevation



Just for fun I put a well with real water and a fountain in the center of the stage.
One student spent hours playing with water pumps and nozzles trying to get a good stream of water.
The director had the main Lovers do a scene going in and out of the water. 









Updated May, 23, 2017


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