Six Characters in Search of an Author

Every once and a while I go back and re-read my blog, fix mistakes and add new photos when I scan more or find some new ones online.
Well it seems that I left out an important play from my senior year at SUNY Buffalo.
I was asked to design the lighting for a production of Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello that was scheduled for December 1977.

Six Characters in Search of an Author , 1977

The play is an odd one and we did a good job making it even odder.
The play begins at an audition for a play when the “Characters” step out of the play and talk with the director.
The real director changed it from a play to a magic and circus act audition.

As the audience came to the theatre they were divided in half and brought into the Theatre in two groups.
As they would pass through the lobby they would see the “Characters” from behind some glass doors.
As they stepped into the Theatre the lights would come on with a Linda Ronstadt’s “Heat Wave” blasting through the speakers and the magic and circus acts performing onstage.
After everyone was in the music and action would stop and the second group would be brought in and the same things would happen to them and then the play would start.

As you can see from the show photos the set was unique with a hole in the floor center stage.

For the first entrance of the Father and Daughter “Characters” several flash pots were set off in the hole and the two would come up through the smoke.

I had worked with the director before; he is the one who cast our introduction to Theatre class as extras in his play the previous year.
I went to an early rehearsal to start thinking about the lighting when the director asked to read a few lines for someone who was not there and I said sure I would help out.
After the scene was over he said “Good, you now have the part.”
I said wait, but it was too late.
The part was for a stage hand, so I guess it was type casting and that is how I got into my second play at UB.

For some reason the play was delayed until after Christmas break and because the lights were set I felt that I did not need to be at every rehearsal.
I left one rehearsal early and turned off the stage lights and put on the work and house lights.
When I came back the next day the director said that he liked that look so the house lights into one section of the play and I had the crew gel all of the house lights with good old R51.

Speaking of gels I had to change all of the back lights because I had originally chosen a pale green that made it look like the actors were walking in mud.

As part of the publicity for the play the cast would roam about the campus and do parts of the play, hand out fliers and run off.
I was in the Student Union one time when they did this and was very funny to see the reaction to the other students as most had no idea on what had just happened.

The play was well received and I really enjoyed working on it, even when I had to yell my two or three lines out of the control booth window each night.

Finally Graduation from SUNY Buffalo

Since my last blog entry our current production of “The Story” had a four show run at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester and now we have brought it back to Brockport for a two week run.
Trucking the set to and from Geva was lots “Fun” and went better than I had hoped, or is that feared.

"The Story" 2010

Back to 1978 . . .
The last month or so for me in college at Buffalo was a wild, crazy and a lot of fun.
I only had one real class, Art History II on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus an independent study in Theatre so I had plenty of time to work on my last production for the Theatre Department, the outside theatre design job, and one last big music concert.
For the production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” I was designed both the scenery and lighting and was able to bring in one of my friends to help.
Barry helped me put up the temporary lighting trees and wire in the portable dimmers into the church hall we were using.
There was also a shop teacher who also helped me build the set, but I was very surprised when we went to his shop to do some work.
It turned out that he was an elementary school shop teacher, something I never heard of before.
The shop was cute, with small work benches; I thought this must be what Santa’s work shop looked like, but there were no elves to be found.

When the building of a set gets behind I often look but never find any of the magic shop elves who build stage sets.
Often I think many of my students really believe that shop elves build the sets and seem so surprised when they are required to do the work.
Ahh, they might get their wittle hands dirty.
We have soap.

There were still many parties go to and one host.
I used part of my pay from the outside design gig to have a big graduation party.
The party must have been good but for some reason I do not remember it.
I started to sample the drinks a little too early and a little too much and missed most of the party, but from what I found left behind on a table the next day it must of been a good time for all.
There was a baggie with over a half once of really good . . . . . What? No, my housemates and I found nothing, nothing at all.

There were so many things were happening all at once, it seemed that there was too much to do with the end of College and getting ready for Grad School.
Of course it was during this big whirl of events that I picked this time to develop a crush on someone and then found out later that someone else had a crush on me, but I was too busy flirting, too blind or just too stupid to see it.
Well this blog is about my life in Theatre and not my wild love life.
For those stories you will have to read elsewhere:

Dear Penthouse,
After working all day in the Theatre, listening to a friend’s band play all night, I hosted an       afterhour’s party for the musicians and a few friends. 
What happened later you would not believe . . .

Hey!, Back to Theatre.
As school came to an end I was surprised to find out that some of my friends who were the biggest partiers not only graduated but got into Grad school, some even went to Law School.
One of the last things I did in Buffalo before I left was help a friend move a safe out of his house on the day of graduation.
What a wild way to end four years at UB.

Summer was straight ahead along with some new adventures; working for a stage lighting manufacturing company, going out to Michigan to find a place to live for the fall and a stopover back in Buffalo.
Stories to follow.

Transition, Hobby to Career

After a little lull at work allowing me to write several entries to my blog, I will be busy again as I work on our next production and expect to take a little break in writing from my Blog, but I enjoy it and may surprise myself.
Having reached 50 entries in my blog I went back and put in topic labels so readers can sort through the blog easily and I found one repeated story, there might be more, and probably will be in the future as I continue to write.
When I have a little more time I plan to go back edit all of my blog, clean up the writing and add new bits here and there as they come to me.

I hope the reader can tell that even though I was often very busy and constantly working hard, I was always having a great time and enjoyed doing it all.
The long hard hours, getting filthy and yes, even getting electrocuted, was all part of the experience and a hell of a lot of fun, I was learning a lot and always wanted more.

At first doing Theatre in High School was just for fun, but then in College I got more serious about it and wanted to learn more about it and wanted to see where a Life in Theatre might lead.
I was just 22, about to graduate from College, go onto Grad School there was more to learn and many more adventures still ahead for me.
I was not sure what the future would bring, but now I really felt that I was on the right path and could not wait to see what was around the next corner.

While driving a rented truck with the set for our current production at Brockport back from the shop in Buffalo, I was reminded of working on my last play at UB in the spring of 1978.
I was the Technical Director for a production of Lanford Wilson’s Serenading Louie and the Scene Designer had arranged for us to borrow some nice, very white, modern furniture from a local store and I had to go pick it up.
When I got the rental truck I found out it was a standard transmission and I had only driven a car with a standard transmission once before.
In addition I had never driven a truck as large as this one before and I knew I was in for either a fun new adventure or crazy big disaster.
Somehow I got the truck to run, did not destroy the transmission, survived the highways around Buffalo to deliver the furniture safely to the Theatre.

We also had to build some additional modern looking furniture for the production; a low cube-like table with two matching seats.
After one of the boxes was done I could not find my hammer and by shaking the box I found out that we had built it inside.
Instead of just cutting a round hole in the bottom, I traced another hammer, cut out its rough shape, and reached inside to retrieve my "Magic" hammer.
As I recall the furniture ended up in the Assistant Chair’s office after the play was over.

It was after this production was over that several of the graduating seniors and I signed our names with a Sharpie on the wall of the main Theatre office.
I was nice to visit some years later and find the wall full of many more names and being able to find my name, a bit faded, still on the wall.
The Theatre office at UB has now moved to a new building and the old building has gone through several renovations, so I am sure that those names are long gone and are just a memory now.

My 50th Blog Entry!

As I have already noted I worked on several concerts and went to several others, both on and off campus while at UB.
During my years in Buffalo I got to see The Who, The Grateful Dead (twice), Jerry Garcia Band, Genesis, Jesse Colin Young among a few others.
Genesis is one of the first bands to use Lasers in their show, and in a time before Vari-Lites or any other kind of motion lights and it all seemed pretty cool at the time.
I also got to work on concerts for Jean Luc Pony, Patti Smith, Spyro Gyra, The Breaker Brothers Band, Stan Getz and a few others I have forgotten.

Saturday Night Fever came out late in 1977, my last year in Buffalo, and there was a surge in Disco which had been on the decline.

I always found it funny that so many people loved the movie and disco after seeing the film but they never seem to remember that at the end Tony rejects the Disco scene as shallow and goes off to the big city to follow his dream, and the girl.

I was also “Lucky” enough to do the lighting for a Disco night concert with some local DJ.
I set up the all the lights and sent them to the dimmers through a special little electronic box that we had rented.
The special little box had both lighting and sound input and would “Bounce” the light levels to the music.
After some awful droning song that went on forever the DJ said: “Hey, you all loved that song so much I’m going to play it again!”
I switched the special boxed on and let the lights run themselves and thought it was a good time for a break.
In a recent conversation I found out that the Magic Disco Light Controller came from the lighting supply shop I now use here in the Rochester area.
Applied Audio: http://www.theatresupply.com/

There were a few miss haps along the way.
During the set up for one concert I was working behind the stage running lighting cables when I kicked an electrical cord out of the wall outlet.
No thinking about it I just plugged it right back in.
It was the main power feed to the sound system and the surge cause a very loud BANG and blew out one of the speakers.
Ooops, my bad.

Another time I nearly got electrocuted when there was bad wiring in both of the stand lamps that we were using in for one play.
I picked up both at the same time, got a big jolt and could not let go of them, I was shaking and things started to go grey.
My heart pounded and I felt a bit “Fried” for a while after that experience.
For those of us who worked with lights it is a normal part of the job to be “Bit” by electricity from time to time, but this was bad and hurt like hell.
A while later, after I let go, someone touched the two lights together and they both lit up, a nice example of a short circuit.

There were also great speakers who came to the college when I was at UB.
Some of the people I got to hear included Moe Howard (soon before his death), Noel Neill (Lois Lane from the old TV show), Jerry Rubin, Jimmy Carter, Vincent Price (very cool), Chris Miller (the guy who wrote Animal House) and my favorite R. Buckminster Fuller who I got to meet after his talk.
There were always too many good things to do and see when I was in College and Grad School, but I tried to get to as many as I could.

During breaks when I went home to Long Island I would also go in to NYC and buy tickets at TKTS in Times Square.
I would do this several times a year and got to see many great shows.
Coming in by train I would get there early enough that I was often the first or second person on line and had my choice of any of the plays that were running.
Several times I ran into this couple who were fellow Theatre Majors from UB.
Among the many shows I saw, often with the original cast, were: 42nd Street, Chorus Line, Chicago and Sweeney Todd, all of which  have had recent revivals and/or  have been made into movies.

I do not go back to Long Island as often as I did when I was younger and sometimes miss the energy of the City.

Spring 1978

Senior year was full for me with classes, work, planning my future and applying for Grad School.
I looked at schools like NYU and Yale, but after doing the math and I saw no way I could afford them.
At NYU they would take about 12 new lighting design students each year and weed them out to just a few and then maybe offer some financial aid.
At the University of Michigan they only took 2 lighting students each year and if you got in you got a full fellowship.
Even as a kid I knew about the University of Michigan and Michigan Football, got to love those helmets, but I had never thought I would end up there.
But I applied and waited to see what would happen.

I was surprised when I soon got a letter inviting me for an interview.
I put together a portfolio and flew out to Michigan.
I stayed at the house of the former Buffalo student who was just finishing up his MFA there.
I got the tour, saw a play in the big theatre and even went to a party one night and most important I survived the interview.
I laid out my work; drafting’s of light plots, ground plans and various working drawings, plus a few painted set renderings and my simple watercolor of a paper bag.
I remember the Costume Design teacher, Zelma Weisfeld, picking it up by the edges as if it was dirty and asked me if I painted it.
I said yes.

Paper Bag Watercolor 1978

She made no other comment good or bad.
I was not sure what to think but I felt I had done OK.
I returned to Buffalo and waited.
A few weeks letter I got a letter from Michigan and was excited and anxious to open it.
I was second runner up and put on the wait list.

Oh well, I was not sure what that would mean so I focused on the current play or concert, went back to work and waited to see what would happen.
There were plenty of other things to keep me busy, good and bad.
College can be isolating, no really do not see many children or old people and the real world seems to be out there but not on campus, but a few events happened to bring me back to reality.
One of my housemates had to leave school because he had cancer and needed treatment.
Wow, very scary and strange and nobody knew what to say or do except wish him well.

Also in the middle of the semester my friend and former roommate Matt was working in the Theatre when he had an accident.
Now a few years before someone had cut his finger on the table saw and I got a nice big electrical shock, but this was serious.
Matt was working in the Theatre, working up on the lighting catwalks when he fell through the trap door that led down a ladder to the floor.
He fractured bones in his back and hip and was in the hospital for the most of the rest of the school year.
He easily could have been killed or paralyzed; although he recovered I know he is in pain until this day.

These events smack you in the face and cut through the fog of youth and make you face the real world whether you want to or not you are ready.
Sometime near the end of the year I got another letter from Michigan, someone had declined admission and I was offered a place in the fall class.
My future, at least for the next two years was set, and I was very happy and excited, and during my last few weeks at college everything I did was fun and looked great to me.

Spring 1978

I still had a few adventures left in Buffalo and a summer of work ahead before I moved to Ann Arbor.

A Few Words About Classes

I have already talked about a few classes, but I a few other stories about my classes at UB.

The year I took Introduction to Theatre the class filled up and another section was added.
There were over 150 in the first section and only 12 or 15 at most in the section I took.
One of the first things that the instructor told us was that if we wanted to learn about Greek and Roman Theatre, lots of names and dates then we should take the other section; but if wanted to learn about Theatre then we should stay.
I stayed.

The class was more like an improv or acting class, along with other stray topics added from time to time.

The only required text was “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.

http://robertpirsig.org/news.htm

Good book, not really about Theatre, but it was a good read.

It was a great class and the teacher cast us as extras in the play he was directing.
The play was an original work called “The Alley Between Our Two Houses”.
We were all extras in a bar that was part of the show.
It was a memory/sexual fantasy play with a live Rock band onstage in the bar.
It was odd and lots of fun and there is no way I could tell you the plot in the space that I have here.

One day in class we were doing a traditional acting exercise, the Trust game, where someone stands in the middle and just falls to one side, is caught, stood back up and then falls in an another direction.
Well the girl in the middle was facing me and fell toward me, and because I wanted to be a gentleman and not grab her ample chest, I tried to grab for her shoulders and almost dropped her.

Another day we had to tell each something that most people did not know about us.
When it was her turn, the same girl from the Trust game stood up and turned around and dropped her pants to show us a tattoo on her ass.
I think it was a butterfly.

Jumping ahead a few year I was walking through the Museum of Modern Art in NYC with a friend and we met this same girl coming up a stairway in the museum.
We talked briefly and as she went up the stairs the last thing I saw of course was her butt and broke into laughter.
After a minute I had to share with my friend what I found so funny.

Back in my Freshman year I took Stage Lighting I and remember one class demo that did not go as the teacher had planed.
He was talking about color and its use on the stage.
We looked at the primaries and how the mixed to white and some other combinations.
Then he began to talk about certain colors did not always work well on some skin tones.
Green of course is not a good choice in most cases.
The he said that amber (yellow) did not work well on the skin of Black actors.
We happened to have an African-American student in the class and he was asked if would stand in the light, which he did.
So an amber gel was put in a light and the student looked great, his color was just fine and everyone laughed.
I did learn an important lesson that day; do not assume anything, test things for yourself, and although there may be conventions, do not be afraid to experiment.

Senior year I took a special topics seminar course taught by two instructors including the Department Chair.
Not thinking clearly three of us had a few beers in the Rathskeller over in the student union before the late afternoon class.
Of course one by one we had to leave to go pee, at least once, and with about 12 of us all sitting at one big table it did not go unnoticed.

I took two art classes in a building a few blocks from campus.
They were in an old city old water pumping building with lots of pipes, big valves and others interesting things to draw, paint or photograph.
I was eager to take the classes but disappointed in how the Art Department treated non-majors taking their classes.
My biggest disappoint was when the drawing class was split and the non-majors sent to draw in the basement when they brought in the naked models, thankful we had lots of naked people back in the Theatre Department.

Senior year at UB.

I still had many plays to work on, some new adventures and plans for my future.
My senior year I got to design the lighting for two more plays and served as the Technical Director for another, but I was looking for some other challenges and opportunity and that is why I decided to work with the concert committee designing the lighting for a number of events.

On larger concerts I would help setup the sound and lights that came with the bands and often run a follow spot during the concert itself.
The 70’s were, the 70’s, and there was always too much parting before, during and after the concerts.
It was normal that there would be 10 cold cases of Molson Golden Ale backstage, although most would be saved until after the show was over and the equipment was loaded back onto the trucks.
On smaller shows I would design and run the lighting for the concert, calling out cues over a headset to my follow spot operators.

One of these concerts was with the Punk Rocker Patti Smith.
This was just before her peak, while she was still on the rise.
We really did not have that much lighting equipment, but it was enough to cover the stage and have some flashing colors.
Wild time.
Just before the concert I got a message that Patti wanted to see me backstage.
I was a bit excited to meet her and went into the dressing room area and was introduced to her and this is what she had to say to me: ”Have fun with the lights man”.
Wow, I never would have thought that.
I smiled and just as I was about the leave her guitar player grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside.
With a very serious tone he said that I could do what I wanted, but NEVER completely black out the stage as Patti was afraid of the dark.

It turned out that she had once fallen off the stage and hurt her neck badly.
I assured him that there was always going to be some light on, as I knew that we had too many lights for our dimmers and a set of backlights were just plugged directly into the wall outlets.
I never was a fan of Punk Rock, but Patti Smith put on a great show that included all of the songs that she would become famous for.
http://www.pattismith.net/

Gilda Radner would make fun of her a few months later on Saturday Night Live.

I also got to do lighting for the comedian Robert Klein.
I got to talk with him before the show, but I did not like how he talked down to me, just barking out orders and demanding things that I had no power to give him.
The show was OK, I did the best I could, but I never really found him to be that funny after that.
(He has website too, you can find if you really want to)

I worked on a number of other concerts, large and small, including some Rock, Jazz and even a Folk Festival.
We did concert with one local band whose name I knew from the radio but had never heard play.
To my surprise the band turned out to be Spyro Gyra, a successful Jazz Fusion band that went on to record over 25 albums and had hits with the "Shaker Song" and "Morning Dance".
I did another concert with them later in the year.
Gee maybe it was my lighting that helped them on their way to out of Buffalo and to world tours?

http://www.spyrogyra.com/generalinfo.php?type=history

In the spring of 1978 I was hired to design the sets and lights for a local high school production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor”.
As I was getting near the end of my time at UB it was nice to be hired for an off-campus job, even if it was only for a high school, and it paid, not something that all my Theatre jobs have done.
I did a nice job and was happy with the result.

Each year I was in college I saw upperclassmen go off to Graduate School.
By the time of my senior year I had thought that I might try to go on to Grad School and had started to investigate my options.
One former classmate went on to the University of Michigan on a full scholarship.
It seemed like a good idea so I applied and waited to see what would happen.

General Education

Like many colleges, back when I was at UB there was a general education requirement to take a selection of classes not in my major in addition to Foreign Language and Physical Education courses too.
Compared to the “Gen Ed” program at the College that I currently teach, it was not too demanding and I enjoyed most of the classes that I took.
Among the classes that I took were several History and Political Science courses along with a class in Geography.

I also took a class in Electronics offered by the Medical Technology Department.
I never would have thought to take this class but it was the only electronic course at UB that would allow non-majors take it.
It turned out that the professor was a local actor and liked having Theatres Majors in the class and often made jokes that only we would laugh at.
The lecture part of the class had about 75 to 100 women and only three men, all theatre majors.
The Lab part of the course was held off campus at a local Hospital and my lab partner was a woman who lived near me in the dorm.
As much as I love Theatre, I found that I really enjoyed the non-theatre subjects and being away from the Theatre and meeting new groups of students.
Of course the fact that the class was all women was very cool too.

I had to take two "Phys Ed" courses and one was called “Flag Football and Fitness and Conditioning”.
It was co-ed and lots of fun as we played football until it got too cold and spent the rest of the semester jogging and working out in the weight room.
One day in the middle of one semester we came in for class and found a note that said “Teacher Dead - Class Cancelled”.
Our original teacher was feisty, fun, had great stories and was an early recipient of knee replacement surgery.
Well we soon got a new instructor, a nice enough guy who let us play on the trampoline, but we missed the old one.

I took four semesters of French, but I must admit I do not remember too much today.
One day, while still living on the new campus, I got up early and took the bus to the main campus to be on time for my 8:00 AM class.
Of course it was cold and snowy; 14 degrees and very windy as I recall.
I got off the bus and walked across the open campus to my class and just in time to see someone leaving a note on the blackboard that the class was canceled.
Fortunately this time the teacher was not dead, but it was 8:02 AM and I was cold, hungry.

A is for Apple

In an earlier post I talked about how once I got past my first few classes and had worked on several productions in college my responsibilities grew.
I first became a Master Electrician and Master Carpenter then a Technical Direction and Lighting Designer.
What I had not planned on was that I would be asked to grade my fellow students.
First I was just asked how well the student had done working on the various crews but later I was asked to give them a grade.
I always found this a bit hard but I found that I enjoyed teaching the new students what to do and how to do it.
I did not know at that time that I would become a teacher but the thought had crossed my mind.
I remember one time there were a couple of girls working on a crew, I believe that they were nursing majors.
One day they gave me an apple one day with a note tied to it that said “A is for Apple”.
I ate the apple and gave it back to them with a new note “C is for Core”.

Unlike the previous summer I had not made any plans to work when I went home after my junior year at UB.
I ended up working at a small professional theatre just a few miles from where I lived on Long Island.
The Theatre, The Airport Playhouse was in a bunch of industrial building near the Long Island MacArthur Airport.

(Trivia: The old airport building at MacArthur was used in the opening of the 1970 movie The Out of Towers with Jack Lemon.)

The Theatre was not big, the stage was plywood resting on a bed of 55 gallons drums and I could reach the lights with just a short ladder.
I was hired to be the Lighting Designer for two shows; Rogers and Hart, A Musical Celebration and The Sound of Music.
I also had to be the lighting board operator and follow spot operator, a juggling act that I found out later has been done by many young designers.

The shows were OK, my Lighting was "Spectacular" of course, but more important is that this is where I would meet Richard Logothetis, the owner of Lycian Stage Lighting.
Logothetis’ shop was still on Long Island at that time and by luck was just next door to the Theatre.
OK, you would have to take a short path and go through a small break in the trees, but the parking lots basically backed up to each other.
He supplied the Lighting equipment that was used by the Theatre and I met him when he came by to fix something.
We talked and became friendly and I would work for the next summer after I graduated from UB.
I will talk more about that in future blog entries.
http://www.lycian.com/Home/index.htm

Because I was not making much money at the Theatre I took temp day jobs working through an agency.
I worked a variety of jobs, some for just for a day but one lasted several weeks.
You would have to show up at 6:00 AM and wait to get sent out if there were any jobs.
On the first job I was sent to as I drove up to the area of the place I saw picket signs and was very concerned, I was not going to be a scab and cross the line.
It turned out to be the business next store.

Over the summer I worked in several warehouses moving items and filling orders to be shipped out.
I also worked as a cleaner for a couple of days, something I was used to from my high school job.
The most memorable job was being sent to paint the side of a large fuel storage tank. I had a safety harness on and climbed up the side of the tank, not the biggest, but still large enough.
It was hot, hard to do and very scary when one of the trucks in the loading dock caught fire.
I did not know that I could move so fast as when I tried to get down and away from the fire.
I was invited back the next day but chose not to go back, but found out later that I was the only one who ever came back from lunch to the job.

I was able to get my younger brother a job as the prop master for The Sound of Music.
He worked very hard and did and good job and was very happy when he got paid at the end, $100, the same as me.
I knew that both of us were being under paid, but at 14 he was very happy with the money he got.
What surprises me is that the theatre is still there, thirty plus years later.
They have gone through many staff changes and are still in the same building, and the last time I drove by it does not look like they have expanded at all.
http://www.airportplayhouse.com/index.html

I just found out that Airport Playhouse is closing as of December 2010

Senior year in college and making plans for the future was just ahead for me.

Back to Work

It did not snow all the time and we did have time to work on many plays that year.
I enjoyed that I did many different jobs on the plays, not always doing the same thing.
As noted earlier during my Junior year at UB I worked as the Lighting Designer for Harold Pinter’s “Old Times", Technical Director for Euripides’ “The Bacchae” and the Stage Manager for Eric Bentley’s “From the Memories of Piteous Pilate” in addition to helping out on several other plays and dance concerts.

One of the lighting effects that people enjoyed in “Old Times” was the result of the set design and not my work.
The box set had a raked floor that ran upstage to the back of the Theatre and used the real window in the wall as part of the set.

Pinter's “Old Times”

It was high enough off the ground so people would not look in but you could see the lighted windows of other nearby building, street lights and even a stop light if you sat in the right seat.

Somehow the fuzzy seats used on the set ended up in our house after the play.

They were not really that comfortable put still fun to play with as you could flip them so you could sit from either end.
During the play plywood sides had been added to stop them from rocking.

As Technical Director for “The Bacchea” I enjoyed working with the Scenic Designer, a fellow student, and drafting out the working drawings, many of which I still have.
This is well before AutoCAD and all the work was done with hand drafting.
I starting drafting in high school and really enjoyed it, even winning an award at graduation as the best draftsman along with a special technical theatre award.

The Bacchea

It was during “The Bacchea” that an incident happened that changed the atmosphere for the rest of the school year.
A group of us had just come back from lunch in the student union.
There was some time to kill before the afternoon work call so I went into the tech office to work on the drafting for the play.
Unfortunately some of my friends choose to go to the basement smoke some Wacky Tabacki before the work call.
Of course they got caught by the faculty Technical Director and the two who worked for the department were fired.
I felt bad for them but I had to get on with the work on the show.

The set was a mix of ramps and platforms ay various angles and heights.
I had a hard time calculating all the leg heights because of the overlapping platforms in the design.
There were a few mistakes but easily fixed as we put the set in.

Just a year or two before we had lots of naked people onstage, (and backstage too) but by the time we did this show the cast was less willing to be naked in public.
The costume designer had designed costumes for the women in the chorus that were to be made of just a few layers of gauze and netlike material with the actresses naked underneath.
They were not happy and wanted to wear bodysuits under the costumes.
The designer said she did not want them to wear anything under the costume but said she would add a few more layers for modesty sake.
Well the actresses were still not happy and even more layers were added and the final costumes were very ugly highlighted by masks that had been crocheted.
Greek theatre does not always play too well today, but when the chorus came on the looked like a bunch of ragamuffins, and far from the sexy Bacchantes in the Designer’s vision, many people had to laugh.

Snow, Fun and even more Snow

In the fall of 1976 I was living in Clement Hall on the South campus of UB.

My roommate from the year before (a Theatre major) and two friends (one from his hometown and another Theatre major) rented half a house a few blocks from campus on Minnesota Avenue.

One day in the fall I went to visit them and it is best to always assume that it was a cold and snowy day during that year, but more about the Blizzard of ’77 later.

When I was about to leave another friend of one of the house mates was leaving also so we walked together.

She was a black woman who happened to be a lesbian, why both facts are important to know coming up below.

I will call her Vivian for this story.

We walked the mile or so back to the campus and chose to cut through the Student Union to warm up.

As we came to the Ballroom we saw that there was a party going on inside and two black men were “working” the door.

Back then there always was a party somewhere on campus and always lots to drink.

One of the men was my RA and the other was the president of the Black Student Government who happened to be a Theatre major.

They were happy to see me and happy that I was with a black woman , but I was not going to try to explain our relationship to them.

The party was for minority Freshman and the first drink was free.

I was neither but they gave us both a handful of drink tickets and invited us in.

Well we both went in and enjoyed a few drinks.

I do not know how long Vivian and I stayed and I do not remember how much we drank, but I am sure we had a good time.

I did not see much more of Vivian’s as her friend moved out of the Minnesota house a few weeks later and I moved in the middle of January just in time for the Blizzard of ’77.

We had a great time in that house the rest of the year.

Blizzard of ’77

By the End of 1976 Buffalo had set a new season record for snow fall.

All of the snow that came after the first of the New Year was “Bonus” snow.

Classes began in the middle of January and before the end of the first week there was a snow storm that closed the college for a few days.

We went back to school the next week but a few days later the Blizzard of ’77 hit, just in time for my 21st birthday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Blizzard_of_1977

We had plenty of food and beer at our house and did not suffer.
We listened to music, drank and had a good time staying in as there was no place open to go if we wanted to anyway.

A few days after the storm my Grandfather passed away but there was no way I was going to get down to Long Island from Buffalo at that time.

It was fitting that he died during the Blizzard of ’77 as he was born during the Blizzard of ’88 (that is 1888 of course).

Slowly the town dug out and things got back to normal.

One of the first places we ventured out to was the corner bar just a block or two away.

I was in the bar with one of my housemates when my old roommate from the dorm from which I had just moved out of came in.

He was already very drunk, something that he did too often.

No more then five minutes later the bouncer violently threw him out the front door.

I jumped up to see if I could save him from a beating.

My new house mate found his coat and we walked him back to the dorm.

I never found out why he was thrown out, I assumed he must have vomited or stumbled into the ladies room or a bit of both.

So through three feet of snow we walked him back over a mile to his dorm and then walked all the way back to our house.

I am not sure I could do it all today, but when you are 21 years old it is all just a great adventure and lots of fun.

Junior Year at UB 1976-7

I was eager to get back to college after all the work I had done in the summer of 1976.
This would be a bit different that school year as I decided to move to the main campus closer to the theatre Department and most of my classes.
The new campus at UB was fun, but I was spending too much time on a bus getting back and forth just to go back to the dorm to sleep after long days at the Theatre.
The Theatre Department’s Lighting Design teacher had taken a leave to finish his MFA and we had his assistant in charge that year.

I guess I was a bit pumped, a junior now ready to take on new challenges and responsibilities.
That year I again worked on many plays in many different capacities including serving as the Lighting Designer for Harold Pinter’s “Old Times", Technical Director for Euripides’ “The Bacchae” and the Stage Manager for Eric Bentley’s “From the Memories of Piteous Pilate”.

We had a nice core of tech students who had now worked together on many shows over two years.
We were now upper classmen and took leadership roles on all of the productions, but still worked on each others shows even if not assigned.
Even with all our work we always found time to party.
By my junior year many of the theatre majors had moved off campus as I would do in the spring semester.

One friend and his housemates had a great Halloween party that year and another the next year.
They got complaints from the neighborhood homeowners association, so you know it must have been a great party.
What was there to complain about?
They moved their living room furniture, rugs, TV and lights all on the lawn for a nice display.
Inside there was plenty to drink and someone had set the beer up so it came out of the kitchen water faucet when you turned it on.
The next year to top the lawn display from the previous year they took a car that one of them had been working on and tipped it on its side, “crashing” into the house, with a dead body hanging out the window and colored lights inside the car.

Working as the Stage Manager for Eric Bentley’s “From the Memories of Piteous Pilate” was interesting and different from the things I normally worked on.
Eric Bentley, 93 as I write this, is a well known and respected critic and scholar of the work of Bertolt Brecht.
His best known play is “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been: The Investigations of Show-Business by the Un-American Activities Committee 1947-1958”.
In his prime he toured the world doing his one man show signing the songs of Bertolt Brecht.

For several years Bentley was a guest professor at UB and came to some of our rehearsals.
He gave me script updates from time-to-time, but the director told me to just thank him and put them in the back of my prompt script.
Several years later when the script was published I was not too surprised to find that the written play did not match the version that we produced.
One day while waiting for one of the rehearsal to begin I got to hear Mr. Bentley play the piano.
He played selections from the two music books that had been left there, The Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan Songbooks.

The Department brought in a guest director from NYC for the play.
He asked me to sit with him during the auditions and after one actor left he asked what I thought of him.
I did not think he was very good, but who am I to say, so I just told him that the actor gave him everything he had, he was not hiding anything and that there was not any more depth to him.
He got a part.

Several weeks later when the rehearsals were to begin we found out that the director had quit and was to be replaced.
The new director stayed with the original cast and we went on.
I enjoyed the show and the rehearsal process, but never stage managed again.

Naked People Everywhere. Part 1 of 57

Several of the first shows that I worked on in college had an element that was a bit different from the plays I worked on in High School or Community Theatre.

Naked People.

Some were on stage, some were off stage and even a few just wandering about here and there.

Times were a bit different, it was the middle 1970’s and the people producing the plays were not all that far removed from the 60’s Theatre scene.

For an eighteen year old this was very different, interesting and of course fun.

But just a few years later I remember that the attitudes had changed and nobody wanted to be naked onstage anymore.

One memorable play at UB was “Bride of Shakespeare Heaven”, a compilation several different Shakespeare plays cut and pasted together to make new scenes.

They had done “Shakespeare Heaven” and “Son of Shakespeare Heaven” in the years just before I got to college.

One section of the play was a take off of a game show, another was a spoof of the movie The Godfather, plus there were several other skits and monologues all mixed together.

In one scene an actor walks in dressed as a monk speaking lines from “Timon of Athens” as I remember.

As the scene progressed the actor completely undresses, sits down at a small table, puts on make-up, then puts on a bra and other women’s undergarments and puts on finally a wedding dress.

The play being “Bride of Shakespeare Heaven” everyone had a wedding dress on at the end.

One actress was a Hawaiian Bride wearing just a grass hula skirt and a lea of flowers, with just a bit of tape to keep the lea in place.

The funniest naked person in the show was the actor who played the various statues.

All he wore was white make-up head-to-toe.

If the statue he was doing had a fig leaf then he had one, a helmet and small wings on his ankles when he was Mercury, but other then that he wore just the make-up and a smile.

The play was so popular that it was held over for an extended run.

For the extra run of the play an actress joined the naked guy and did famous paired statues.

I remember when they were taking the cast photo there at the end of the front row were they two naked people.

I wonder if Kodak printed the photos or are they in some lost back room with lots of other fun pictures?

A few other plays my first year had an occasional naked person or two, but it was “Bride of Shakespeare Heaven” that had the most and was enjoyable even without all the naked people, although I did not mind.

Not all the naked people were on stage, but back then it seemed at times that everyone backstage was running around naked, actors, crew and few other oddballs.

More fun with naked people to come in Part 2.

My First College Lighting Design

When I returned to college for my sophomore year I was eager to get back to work on more plays and dance concerts.

In November of 1975 I would design the lighting for my first play in college, actually two one acts.

The plays were Douglas Turner Ward’s Day of Absence and Happy Ending.

Day of Absence was unusual in that all of the actors were Black and played their parts in White Face.

Back in 1975 African-Americans still called themselves Black, and my use of the term is to fit my tales into the proper period vernacular and for clarity sake.

The Black actors were all playing the Whites in a town where all of the Blacks disappeared one day and nothing gets done and everyone panics.

I am not sure how it would play today but it worked back then.

At the time it did not seem to me, a White kid from Long Island, that working on plays with African-American themes and mixed raced was unusual, special, or that we were trying to educate the audience, but I guess we did.

Just last week while looking for something else I found a copy of the light I drew for the two plays 35 years ago.

The light plot has 42 stage lights for both plays.

It was on this show that I used my first moving light, although it was not planed.

After one performance a friend told me that they enjoyed my lighting of the play and especially liked the sunset.

I thanked him but I had no idea what he was talking about.

It seems that the light that I had focused on the window was loose and slowly moved down during the play giving a very nice sunset effect more then ten years before the first motion lights were available on the market.

While I was at UB we also did two plays by South African playwright Athol Fugard; The Blood Knot and Bosemen and Lena.

Because of the subject matter of his plays I had always assumed that he was a Black man.

Several years later at the University of Michigan I got to meet Mr. Fugard and was very surprised when I walked into the room and saw a gray-haired White man sitting there.

I felt like a fool and was glad that I had never said anything to anybody about my thinking he was Black.

I still had a lot to learn about Theatre and still do to this day.

Successful Classmates from SUNY Buffalo

At the time I was in school I had no idea of the success that many of my classmates would have.

During my first year at UB I would work with Alan Adelman, Mitchell Bogard and Ken Tabachnick.

Later I would work with Anne Militello.

Some of Alan Adelman’s work can be on various PBS shows such as Great Performances, Dance in America, American Playhouse and Live from Lincoln Center.

Mitchell Bogard has done a good deal of television lighting for such show as Live From Lincoln Center, Rachael Ray, The Chris Rock, Madonna: Exposed and early on he even worked on Sesame Street.

Ken Tabachnick has worked with The Kirov Opera and Ballet, the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Lyon Opera Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and The Trisha Brown Company.

Anne Militello has designed on Broadway and many other places both on and off stage.

http://www.annemilitello.com/

I will often catch one of their names when I watch any stage production that has been filmed for TV.

Another classmate was Tylor Wymer who worked years for Disney before starting his own special effects company. (I wonder if he still has the T-Square he borrowed from me?)

http://www.wow-works.com/index.htm

Jerry Kegler is the facilities director for the Center for the Arts at UB.
http://www.ubcfa.org/home.aspx

Actors?

I have not yet talked about them.

Yes even some of the actors went on to work on the business.

Tommy Koenig has worked all over the country as a stand up comedian and has appeared in several movies including: Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Dracula Dead and Loving it, and Stitches.

Unfortunately too many of my classmates fell victim to the Aids epidemic of the early 1980’s.

We lost too many talented people.

I know that several others of my classmates also went on to work in theatre, some teaching, some working behind the scenes but all having fun.

There are many others from my days at UB still working in Theatre that I have just lost touch with, but every once and a while I will hear from them.

I just heard from I friend that I was out of touch with for a few years because of this Blog.

It is hard for me to believe that my Blog is important enough to have the content listed by Google.

But it was nice to hear from Barry Besmanoff who still works for LiteLab Corporation, whose product line has changed a bit since they made the Disco Light Floor for the movie Saturday Night Fever.

http://www.litelab.com/document_1.html

I always tell my students that someday when they are out there working in Theatre that some of their current classmates will be out there too.

Their friends and former classmates can become people that they can count on to work with.

I have had calls former students who are now running Theatres and they ask me about another Brockport grad whose resume they have received.

Theatre is a small world.

Work Hard - Play Hard

Even as I started to work on the set for my first play in college I was not yet sure if Theatre was going to be my career.

I knew I loved working on plays, building and painting sets, working on the lighting and sound, but I did not know if I had what it would take to become a professional.

I did not take long for me to realize that I was doing what I loved and I was working with other students who were just like me and that this is what I wanted to do.

I still had a lot to learn but it was challenging and fun at the same time.

After working on the first play I would work on three dance concerts in a row.

I would help hang and focus the lights as well as run the two-scene preset control board.

When I left for school at the end of the summer I had no idea what I was getting into, but just after a few months and several productions I was hooked.

I worked on many more productions then I was required to for class.

I often would return to the dorm late after rehearsals and performances and missed a few parties but there was still plenty of time to engage in what to many college students is the most important thing about college: Drinking.

I always had a core of non-theatre friends to hang and party with, but I soon spent more time working and partying with my fellow theatre students.

Back in 1974 the drinking age was still 18 and bars closed at 4am in Buffalo.

There was always time after a show to get a drink or two.

I enjoyed going to the student club because it had the one thing that college guys liked more than drinking: Girls.

I liked dancing in the club, but within a few years the music shifted from Doobie Brothers to Disco and I enjoyed it a bit less.

I do remember this one girl who lived near me in the dorm who I always liked to dance with.

I remember her for a number of things, she was nice, good looking and had two different color eyes; one green, one blue.

She would soon transfer to another school and I lost my favorite dance partner.

A year or so later while I was visiting my brother at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn this very same girls walked out of the dorm room next to his.

Small world.

I found early on that Theatre was a lot of hard work when done right, but also I found that everyone would party just as hard when the work was over.

Nothing tastes as good as that first beer after you have been working in the Theatre for twelve hours or more building, painting or running a show.

Putting My New Hammer to Use

While at SUNY Buffalo, UB, I worked on many plays: some classics, some modern works, some original works and some just too odd to categorize.
Over my fours years at UB I also worked on at least five or six dance concerts.
During my first semester I put my new hammer to work right away on the set for The Misanthrope.
That first semester I also got to work on three dance concerts and another play or two.
We were always very busy at UB working in both of the theatres at the same time.

By my second semester I moved up from being just a general technical assistant to become the master carpenter and master electrician for a number of the productions.
I have put together a list of some of the plays that I worked on while at UB.
I know that I worked on a few others, but these are ones that I still have the program for.
On many of the unlisted plays I served as a general technical assistant, working a day or two just to get the show finished or striking the set.

Here is a list of most of plays that I worked on while at UB from 1974 until 1978:
The Misanthrope
Baal
Apple Pie
Bride of Shakespeare Heaven
A View From the Bridge
The Good Woman of Setzuan
Ronnie Bwana, Jungle Guide
Day of Absence and Happy Ending
The Alley Between Our Two Houses
From the Memoirs of Pontius Pilate
Old Times
The Bacchae
Les Blancs
Trouble in Mind
6 Characters in Search of an Author
Serenading Louie

A Few Titles from the “Unlisted” List of Plays:
Naked Lunch
Bozeman and Lena
Loves Labor Lost
The Blood Knot
Old Timers Sexual Symphony and Other Notes

My Hammer

My first Theatre course at UB was Stagecraft, a class I have now taught over fifty times.

After my first class I remember going to a F. T. Grant’s department store and buying tools required for class: a hammer, pliers, tape measure, a couple of screw drivers and a “C” wrench.

Most of the tools are gone but I still have the hammer I bought for a few dollars back in the fall of 1974.

It was a generic store brand 16 oz, metal shaft, rip hammer.

I had it all the way through college, grad school, working Off-Broadway, doing summer stock and it was with me when I started teaching and I have it still.

There is nothing magic about it, works like any other hammer, but to me it is special.

If I am working with a bunch of other tools and pick up another hammer, I can always tell if it is not mine right away.

I have used many other hammers, some very expensive, all very nice, but I always prefer my old reliable friend.

When I began teaching and students would have trouble driving nails I would have them use my hammer and often time they would have success and drive nails home.

With air nailers and dry wall screws, the hammer does not get as much use as it once did, but it is nice to know it is still there ready for action.

I lost the other tools from freshmen year one by one over time.

The small 12 foot Stanely tape measure was with me a long time, I replaced the blade once or twice but it finally gave out.

Sometimes tape measures do not even make it through one work day and I had that one for over 15 years, but it is the hammer that is 35 years old, and like me, still has some nails to drive.

Theatres I Got To Play, I mean Work, In

Before I get into detailed stories about what I did in college I thought I give an overview of the some of the spaces I worked in.
The first Theatre that I saw when I went to SUNY Buffalo, UB, was the brand Katharine Cornell Theatre in the, then new, Ellicott Complex on the North Campus.
The Theatre is a square shape “multi-use” space that can hold up to 340 people.
The Theatre was not used by the Theatre Department at that time, and this was years before the current Center for the Arts was built.
It was supposed to be flexible, new and “Unique”.

It was odd, hard to use and flooded the first or seconded year I was there.
The design had a few flaws; a big one was that when you sat in the middle section you could see into the woman’s dressing room, right to the shower in back when the door was open.
It had a 10 scene preset lighting board in a control booth that was glass from ceiling to floor and the whole audience could see you at work.
The lighting control consol was very big and “State-of-the-Art” at that time, and made you feel think you were running a transporter on Star Trek.

When I first walked in everything was new, lighting instruments were all lined up neatly up in the catwalks.
When I came back a day later I noticed that some of the small Fresnels, “Inkies” were missing and probably lighting up some dorm room.
Instead of the standard pipes used to hang then lights the Theatre had a “C” shaped channel that appeared to be hung sideways and made it hard to work there.

I worked on a few shows in the Theatre, mostly music concerts, and it was here that I met the late Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog Synthesizer.

When I final got to the main campus I got to see the Theatre used by the Department.
It was disappointing.
The Theatre was a converted space, a small proscenium stage at one end and the rest was just a big open space with lighting catwalks above.
Not a very impressive space to see and I did not know yet that over the next four years I would get to work on some widely varied and interesting productions in the space.

It would be a few weeks before I got to see the most interesting space which was the Courtyard Theatre that was off campus and near Buffalo State College.
The theatre was in a converted church, and the space was used in several different configurations during my time there.
It was in this space that the more interesting, controversial and just plain fun plays took place.
We had to share car rides, take the bus or even hitch hike to get there.
There was a dance studio in the lower level along with the dressing rooms and the scene shop was in the lower basement.

The main level had a stage at one end, an open area where pews used to be and a small balcony or old choir loft, but we never really used it in a “Normal” way.
Seats and sets could be in any location in the building.
In one production, Ronnie Bwana, Jungle Guide, there were two sets in different areas on the Theatre.

Ronnie Bwana, Jungle Guide  Act I

The second floor had a small apartment for a live in Theatre manager and what had been at one time a small stage for when it was a church.
We did use the small theatre for one special production for which I served as the House Manager.
The space was normally the kitchen/living room area of the apartment and had no more then 40 seats, if that.
Because I had volunteered to work on that show I ended up working with the company that summer in NYC.
Details on this and other stories to follow.

Back to School

As I have been working these first few weeks of a new school year, I have thought back to when I first went to college.

Although I have not had time to blog lately I have been thinking about my time at SUNY Buffalo, UB,

and trying to sort out just what I want to write about.

Many of my fellow classmates from my time college have gone on to have successful careers in Theatre, Designing on Broadway, working in Regional Theatre, Operas, Rock ‘n Roll, TV and Movies, winning Tony and Emmy awards and more.

As a college teacher today, 35 years later, I wonder if my current students worry and/or dream about the same things that I did back in college.

Do they really know what they are in for if they really pursue a career in Theatre.

Do they have the drive and commitment it takes to have a career in Theatre, or are they just hanging out trying to have some fun while in college?

When I have one of those special hard working and driven students who come through school every once and a while, I think back to when I was one of those young eager student just starting out and wonder if they will make it and what lies ahead for them.

I used to ask myself if any of my students will go on to have careers in Theatre, but I have been teaching long enough now to see that some of my former students are working and teaching in theatres all over the country, plus few overseas too.

I have never minded working hard or staying late to get a production done, and I  like working with those students who really want to learn and enjoy showing them what to do.

When I hear back from them a few years later, and they tell me what they are working on, it makes me feel good and makes all the extra time worth it.

But back in the fall of 1974 I was one of those fresh kids wanting to make his mark, wanting a chance to show off what I knew (or thought I knew).

Just a few months before in High School I was the President of the Theatre Club, Head of the Stage Crew, but now I was just one of the several new kids.

I worked on everything I could, both for class credit and just for the experience.

By the end of my freshmen year I moved up for just a general technical assistant to a crew chief and even master electrician for one of the plays.

The student Lighting Designer for the play that I was the master electrician for as the has gone on to have a very successful career in NYC working in both Theatre and TV, winning three Emmys.

I just ran into him for the first time since 1975 at the USITT conference in Cincinnati back in March.

I do not think he really remembered me, but we had a nice talk about the people we worked with back in Buffalo and what they are doing now.

UB had several Theatres and each was unique, I will talk about them in my next post.