Wait Until Dark

The second show of my second summer at Brockport was Wait Until Dark for which I designed the set.

Here at Brockport we just did the show again in April of 2011 as part of regular season with the same director as in 1984, Dick St George.

I cannot really tell which production was better because of the large gap of time and my memory of the acting has faded, but I  can honestly tell you I had more fun on the summer production of 1984 because I was more involved with the production.

 

For the most recent production I just served as the Technical Director and had a student Lighting Designer so I had less input into how it looked.

Scene Designer for WAIT UNTIL DARK, 1984

The summer shows were always lots worked mixed with lots  of fun and the student workers did a great job and we all had lots of fun building and running the shows and also during the all important cast parties.

I do not recall that when we did the summer show that we had too many problems except with the noise of the broken refrigerator which is import to the action of the play.

This past year we had a professional sound designer and the show had a “Soundscape” with music that was a bit too melodramatic and other odd noises important to the special plot moments of the play.

Back in 1984 we had a real door buzzer wired into the set and used the shop air compressor as the sound of the refrigerator.

Rough Draft of Scene Design

Final Design

It had to be covered with old stage drapes to muffle the sound a bit but we just turned it on when needed.

The thrown knife effect was done about the same way in both shows and unless you were looking in the right spot you never saw it.

The knife used in the first play was mine and it was a real Buck Knife I had gotten for Christmas.

It turned up missing after one of the performances and we had to buy a new one and it is the same knife that I have with my tools to this day.

The husband of the main character is a photographer and there is a dark room onstage important to action of the play.

The changes that have happened with the passage of time could clearly be seen with the photographic props.

Back in 1984 we just moved equipment from the department dark room onstage and plugged it in and used it, but for last spring’s production they had to hunt for an enlarger, safelight and the other items needed.

We did use the same old front loading washing machine in both productions.

I think we even used the same oven that has been a piece of crap that we should have thrown out years ago.

In both productions we used crew people with costume changes to walk across the platform that was outside of the set’s windows at different during the play.

For our recent production I used about 15 to 20 student and about five to six weeks to build the set, back in 1984 I had about 6 helpers and we built in less than 10 days.

WAIT UNTIL DARK, 2011

It is amazing how more help can actually slow you down sometimes; but back then on the summer productions we did work at least eight hours a day seven days a week but  because it was the summer the students did not have to run off to classes.

Now being 30 years older than most of my students instead just 4 or five years older, I do not get as close to them as I did when I first started working at Brockport, but I still enjoy working on the plays and teaching the students how it is done, even though I no longer get to go out drinking with them.

Two brothers who were both in the summer production of the play and happened to grow up in Brockport were back in town and came to one of our fall productions.

It was nice to see them both, but it was a shame that they missed the newer production of Wait Until Dark.

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