My Fair Lady

I felt confident and good going into my second Summer Arts Festival at Brockport.

Having gone through two school years and a summer I knew what was in store and I had built up a good working relationship with the students who were staying to work on the two plays.

We did have a few non-students who worked on the production but most were theatre and other students who stayed in town for the summer.

Some students would get course credit for working while most would get a small paycheck for lots of hard work.

Although the rehearsals and set construction would begin in June the planning of the production would begin months earlier when the production team was put together, sets and costumes designs prepared and auditions were often done as early as March.

The department faculty designers did not always stay for the summer plays and for My Fair Lady an outside set designer was hired.

The production was a true “Town and Gown” production with a mixture of students, college faculty and staff and a variety of local actors appearing in the play.

The audience looked forward to the productions each summer and some of the local actors became crowd favorites over the years.

The Scenic Designer they hired worked at Geva Theatre, the local Professional Theatre in Rochester.

I guess because of that connection I had been hired to do some freelance set construction work over spring break in March and for about a week I helped build the set for a production of Born Yesterday, working mostly on a large curved staircase.

I enjoyed working there and always wished I had more time to work there and do more outside jobs, but my job my job at Brockport requires me to work on or supervise all of the Theatre and Music events at the college and it has always been hard to find the time to in fit outside work into my schedule.

My Fair Lady was going to be a large traditional set with many scenes and a number of painted backdrops.

Five or six brand new backdrops were ordered ahead of time so that they would be ready to paint as soon as we began working in June.

One of the first things we did when the crew came to work was to clear everything out of our Black-Box Theatre and stretch out and staple down two of the new backdrops to the floor so that they would be ready for the designer to paint.

As soon as the first two backdrops were painted we would take them up, hang them in the Mainstage Theatre and place two fresh ones down.

Unfortunately the backdrops sat unpainted on the Theatre floor for weeks.

We were busy building the many flats, stair units and other set pieces required for use in the set.

The biggest set was Professor Higgins' house that was made up of many of many walls and a large staircase unit that rolled on and off as needed.

Some of the students asked the designer when he would paint the backdrops and if they could help but he would always put them off and said that the work would begin soon.

One drop was eventually painted and looked very good and it reassured everyone that things would be done on time.

The first painted backdrop was the hallway in Professor Higgins' house that used for the many crossover scenes, but nothing else was done for a long time.

My crew worked hard every day and all of the set pieces were done on time but unfortunately not the backdrops.

Opening night we had only the one painted backdrop and I had to hang just black curtains and one white unpainted backdrop to fill the stage.

For the "Ascot Gavotte" we had nothing but the actors in front of a black drape and for Eliza’s big moment at the “Embassy Waltz" we had a nice double stair unit but just a blank backdrop behind it.

For the romantic scene of “On the Street Where You Live" we had a nice front door and steps of the house but nothing to go around it and were forced to hang some black drapes and pin one up so it would go around the doorway.

One night the stage manager, another crew member and I got stuck behind the unit as the curtains got caught up on the door unit and we could not get off with being seen as the scene went on.

The Stage Manager still had her headset on and called the cues the best should could.

The second weekend of the production the backdrop for this scene was painted and we hung it.

Even with the set problems the show went off well and the audience enjoyed the production.

I liked the Set Designer and he did good work, I know he was going through some person issues but I never found out why he waited so long to get started on the painting until it was too late.

The summer plays were always a lot of work and we always had fun.

We did take time to set off the Fourth of July fireworks as we had done the summer before and I remembered to wear my hearing protection unlike the first year.

After the dress rehearsals and performances the cast and crew always went out for a few drinks and some nights there was even some “Tailgating” as one of the cast members would have a cooler of beers and they would just party in the parking lot.

This was 28 years ago and although drinking and driving was bad then, people did not take as seriously as we do now and that fact that more people did not get into trouble was just luck.

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