For some reason in the spring of 1993 the department decided
that it would be a good idea to do two shows in repertory.
The two shows could not have been more different; Romeo
and Juliet and The Foreigner.
Faculty designed and directed Romeo and Juliet was a
beautiful production.
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| Romeo and Juliet |
One show alone there was enough to keep us all more than
busy but we had two to take care of.
The students had been taking stage combat instruction from a
guest instructor for two years and were very excited to have a chance to use
what they had learned onstage.
Some of the young women were very good fencers and were used
“In Drag” for the larger fight scenes.
I designed a moody but appropriate lighting for Romeo
and Juliet and needed to do a gel change between shows for the front
light.
Of course we forgot to change the colors for one show and
could not figure out why the lighting for The Foreigner seemed so dark.
The Foreigner was designed by a student and directed
by an outside director who we had used for several productions.
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| Romeo and Juliet |
The set was simple enough but offered technical challenges
the biggest of which that both it and the set for Romeo and Juliet had to be able to
be taken apart and moved out of the way several times during the run.
For The Foreigner we got to reuse the
Dracula
elevator to make KKK member melt into the floor.
Of course the biggest challenge was that in the middle of
the run we took the set for Romeo and Juliet apart and put it in
a truck and brought it to East High School in Rochester so that we could do a
matinee and then brought it back and put it back together for the rest of the
run.
It was a crazy idea and lots of extra work but the students did a
great job even having some fun along the way.
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| The Foreigner |
The Production Manager/ATD was being very diligent about labeling
all the set pieces so we could put the set back together.
Just for fun the students made some extra brace pieces,
labeled them and put them in the truck.
They got a good laugh watching the PM/ATD try to figure out where the extra pieces went.
Both productions went well and even though it was lots of
extra work it was worth it.
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