August 1980, Transition

My Thesis review went well and after a few re-writes I would have my MFA in Lighting Design.
It was time to pack up and head on to the “Real” world.
Even leaving Ann Arbor was an adventure.
I had to buy the largest portfolio case I could find; 32” x 42”.
I called the airline to make sure that it would fit if I carried it on, as I was not going to check my artwork.
They said it was 747 and that it would not be a problem.

I got to the airport and went through security (not the same X-rays and chemical tests of today, but they still hand checked most bags) my agent looked puzzled and called over his supervisor.
He said: “Hey this guy has sword in his bag!”
The supervisor looked in and laughed; “It’s just a T-Square, let him on the plane”.

Of course the portfolio case was too big to fit in the over head compartment and they were not sure what they were going to do with it when one of the stewardesses found room behind one of the seats.

So at 24 years old I was done with college and graduate school and moving home with no idea what I was going to do next.
I called some of my friends who were already working in New York City for some help on I what I should do next.
One friend was working over in New Jersey and my first job after college was going out there and helping him strike the set for “On Golden Pond”.
I spent a few days on my friend's couch and do not even remember if I got paid or not.

Another friend gave me the names and phone numbers for two scenic studios that he had worked for and I called the shops and told them who I was, that was just out of grad school and that my friend had worked for them.
Both places said that they had no idea who my friend was but I sounded good and to please come in for a job.

I did two jobs for The Theatre Machine, both on location and I never saw their shop.
This first job was in the Guggenheim Museum down in the theatre in the basement level.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york

Like the museum, the theatre is round.
I helped to install a set, most platforms for the seating, and had a few interesting moments.
New York City has strict fire codes and all of the wood is fireproofed.
One day I got some sawdust in my eye and it burned for hours and I lost a half a day’s work.

Another we were moving in sheets on Masonite to cover the floor when about 20 to 25 sheets of it fell against me pinning me to the wall.
It was very hard to breathe or yell for help, but I was soon free.

The best thing that came of this job that one day at lunch I had the best piece of cheesecake that I have ever eaten.
Nothing has ever been close but I have no idea of the name or location of the restaurant.

The second job was downtown a bit near Union Square.
In an empty space that had been an Athletic Club, we built a mock-up of a boardroom for 3M.
They wanted to test the size and shape of a new big table they were going to have made to make sure they liked the shape and that it would serve their needs.
It must have been a very expensive table if they spent the extra money to have us build a mock-up of the room and table.

I worked next for Crawford Brother Studio in Brooklyn.
Their shop was in the neighborhood that is under both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and it was cool to see them way above the buildings.
It is a popular view and I have seen it many times in movies over the years.

I was hired to help build the set for a tour for a production of “Oh, Calcutta!”

http://www.broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/ohcalcutta.htm

The show is famous for two things; Lots of naked people onstage and that it ran for a long time.

We built many acting cubes and small platforms that would make the set and loaded them in the bottom of a tour bus when we were done.
They did not too much room for the costumes.

So this was my start and working in the “Real” world, just a few months out of school and more adventures where just ahead.


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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.

All We are Saying is Give Peace a Chance

 Thirty years ago today I was working in Manchester, New Hampshire on a production of A Christmas Carol.

This story jumps ahead six months in my blog timeline and I will come back to it in more detail, but I wanted to talk about what happened that day.
I was the Scenic Designer and Technical Director and was also suppose to be the Lighting Designer but the company had hired too many Stage Managers so they let one of them design the lights.

I worked alone most of the time because my assistant had been cast in the play and was rarely there.
They said: “Oh, he has a small part; he won’t have to be at many rehearsals and will be in the shop with you most of the time”.
That of course was just one of many lies they told me and his part kept getting bigger each day.

After working all day in a very cold scene shop, I walked back through the cold to my very cold room in what could best be called a flop house, welfare hotel or just a big dirty dump of a house to unwind and watch some TV.
The regular place that the theater company used had recently burned downed and they struggled to find place for everyone to stay.
Again more details about my wonderful time in New Hampshire will follow.

That night my assistant and I were watching Monday Night Football on TV in my room when the creepy guy from across the hall walks in and says that John Lennon had just been shot.

Shocked, we both turned to look at him and almost at the same time Howard Cosell announced Lennon’s death on the TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n73GFvAyIjs&feature=player_embedded

I worked alone in the shop the next day listening to nothing but Beatles and Lennon songs on the radio and thinking about what had happened.

As it turned out my assistant is the youngest person I know who ever saw the Beatles play live in concert.
When he was about five years old his mother took him to see them and all he remembers is that all of the girls, including his mother, screamed for the whole concert.

When I catch up to this time in my blog again you will see that this tragic moment was just a small part of a very crazy five weeks in my life.






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101st Technical Commando Brigade, Ann Arbor, MI

Working in Theatre can be dirty, hard work, long hours and lots of fun.
Always looking for some stress release we are always joking among ourselves, having parties and poker games and each year while I was at Michigan someone made T-shirts for everyone.
Based on one of the teachers sayings, and a T-shirt he had, the T-shirt that was made my first year was red and said in big type “ Blow Me Dogface” with “Survivor of Winter 1979” below it.
One day we were all told to wear it to that teacher’s class who topped us all by having the original under his sweater.

The T-shirt from my second year was in the Michigan school colors of Maize and Blue.
I still have it, although it is a bit too small and fabric is a bit thread bare as it has been washed few too many times.
What did it say? See below:

We would wear them whenever we needed a boost after working long hours and I would forget that I had it on when I would next door to “Olga’s Death Gyros” for lunch.
I would get some odd looks from the “normal” or civilian people outside of the Theatre building.
“Olga’s” had the worst coffee in Ann Arbor, at least according to Dick Block one of our design teachers.

In August of 1980 I submitted my thesis with set, lighting and costumes designs for Marlowe’s “The Jew of Malta”.
Included with my 60 page paper were several light plots, working drawings, set renderings, costume plates and other related materials.

Set Rendering and Light Sketches

After the faculty reviewed the work I had to go in for an oral review and defend my work.
All of the other MFA students would always wait outside the room to see how you did.
The first question from everyone when I came out of the room was that they wanted to know what designs I had to redo.
I was very proud to tell them the faculty accepted all of my design work and all they wanted were a few changes and corrections in my paper.

Costume Plates

When I get all of my thesis scanned and posted online I will let my blog readers know.

College was now done for me and it was time to go back to Long Island and begin a new phase in my life.



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Richard III

During my second year at Michigan we did Richard III with the late actor Nicolas Pennell as the lead.
He had worked regularly at the Stratford Festival in Canada and brought along a young fight choreographer who was in some of the battle scenes.
We used a stock platform for all of the Shakespeare plays and the designers just added pieces to the unit for each play.
For Richard III the scenic designer just took the set for Richard II from the year before and basically smashed it.
All the nice detail and trim pieces that had been added to the original set were broken off to help show the decay of the kingdom.




Richard II set before it was smashed for Richard III


During one of the fight scenes the fight choreographer was in a sword fight on the upper level, he was stabbed, spun and fell off the platform into the waiting arms off four soldiers who carried off his dead body.
Opening night all went well and the audience loved it.

On the second night the fight choreographer was in a sword fight on the upper level, he was stabbed, spun and fell off the platform into the waiting arms of two soldiers who dropped the fight choreographer who broke his arm and the two late soldiers helped the other two carry off the fight choreographer writhing in pain.

On the third night the fight choreographer was in a sword fight on the upper level, he was stabbed, and fell dead on the upper level and stayed there until the end of the scene.

It always seemed that I was working on one play or another, doing class work or working my thesis but somehow I managed time for a few dates while at Michigan, but no romance would come of it.
The second summer brought four more shows in rep and working to finish my thesis.
I would work only 100 hours on the set up of the lights and then work full time on my thesis, taking only short breaks for a weekly softball game and monthly poker game.

Two non-Michigan students who came to work on the summer rep were assigned to work with me on the electrical crew and they were both nice enough and I have a few odd memoirs of them.
One day while working in the lighting shop I had one of those moments when you feel like some mild electrical shock has gone through you body that causes you to shiver when it happens.
The girl working next to me, Martha, had the same experience and when we turned to ask the other guy if he had felt it too we found him on the floor having an epileptic seizure.

Another time I was working up in the catwalks of the Power Center with Martha when she begin talking about some major surgery that she had recently had done and I almost fell 30 feet from shock when she lifted up her shirt to show me the scar that ran from the middle of her chest to below her belly button.
I was not at all ready to be flashed while working up at that height.




Bio from Summer 1980 Program


I often found reasons not to work on my thesis.
One of my favorite excuses was just waiting until it got dark before I would come in to work.
Because Michigan is in the western part of the Eastern Time zone it stays light much later than it did back home on Long Island.
From time to time I found myself playing Frisbee with guys in the street until well after dusk at 10:30 PM.

A week or so before my thesis was done my parents and younger brother, who was 17 at the time, stopped by at the end of a cross country camping trip that had taken them to the Grand Canyon.
This was the longest trip that they had ever taken.
They collected most of my belongings to bring back home and left with me with just the bare essentials.

My thesis review was near and my time at Michigan was almost done.





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The Master Builder

At one of our weekly graduate seminars the faculty noted that no one was assigned to design the set for one of the showcase productions and asked for a volunteer.
It seemed that everyone just melted down into their seats, looked into their armpits or out the window and avoided eye contact with the faculty.
Always looking for a new challenge I raised my hand and said that I would be willing to give it a try.

Scene Design for "The Master Builder" Act I - 1980

The play was the Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen, the father of modern drama.

I had read all of Ibsen’s major plays and wrote a term paper about his design ideas for my Contemporary Drama class the year before and I had just designed the set for the play for one of my scene design class projects so I felt confident that it would be an easy job.

Needless to say it was not.

Act II

At the first design meeting the director stated that he did not to have any walls in a play about an Architect who, of course, uses walls to design his buildings.

He also had an idea that today would be very easy to do, but thirty years ago I had to come up with a workable solution.

He wanted, what in effect today would just be the effect of a simply laser pointer being wiggled on the sky drop behind the set.

I had seen a rippling water effect that used broken mirror pieces in a pan of water, a fan blowing on the water and a light reflected off of the pan onto the stage.

I replaced the mirror and water with a piece of silver Mylar that was slit, a small fan and a red light aimed up on the sky drop.

I painted two projections with translucent dyes that were used in a pair of old Linnebach projectors.

One was a stormy sky and the other a sunburst both based on paintings by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.



Act III

The set had several platform levels, two about 8’-0” x 8’-0” that played in different positions during each of the three acts.
Additional railing pieces were added to the set during the two act breaks.
Drafting tables and a desk were built specifically for the show and additional expanding foam railings were made from plaster molds.



I enjoyed working on the play and this was my last design project before the final push to finish my MFA Thesis and final summer at the University of Michigan.

 

Set Model



 

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Dance tours to Interlochen Arts Academy

I enjoyed working with the stagehand’s union and was excited that the Grateful Dead where coming to town and when the business agents asked who wanted to be on the crew I quickly volunteered.
Unfortunately I was not called for the crew and ended up just buying a ticket and going to the show anyway.
There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.

In the spring of my first year at Michigan I was called, twice, to help on The New Barbarians concert, a benefit tour put together by Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones as part of his plea deal for a drug bust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Barbarians_(band)

Ann Arbor was to be the first night of the American part of the tour and they were expecting many trucks with equipment from all over the country to arrive with the various guest artists for this all-star band and really needed a big crew.
As fate would have it I had a final exam in a Psychology class early the next morning and there was no way I could work the concert and expect to be ready for the test.

The course was called Perception and was about how our body’s senses work and react to things like color and light, and I still use some of what I learned back then when I teach today, so maybe it was a good idea that I did not work that concert.

I really gave it some thought, but I had to pass on what could have been a very exciting event.

Although disappointed in missing these two events I still had plenty of other productions to work on in addition to the regular department productions.
I worked on a re-mounting a production of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, a music/dance event that had been staged before I got to Michigan and I also got design lighting in the Power Center one more time when I was asked to do the lighting for a joint concert of the Wisconsin Singers and Michigan’s Amazin’ Blue, a “Wild” concert of college Glee clubs.

My lighting design teacher asked me to serve as his assistant for a tour of two dance faculty to the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan.
http://academy.interlochen.org/

It was a nice trip and I ended up being the stage manager, master electrician in addition to being the assistant to the lighting designer.
Interlochen is a wonderful place, isolated, but even in the middle of the winter it was a very beautiful and peaceful place to be.
Because Interlochen is a high school and not a college, the local town was pretty quiet and did not offer too many options but our first night there the four of us went out to a local bar and had a good time even though we knew that everyone in the bar was looking at us.
The staff treated us very well and had a nice reception/party for us after the show.

Odd memory: it was on the drive up to Interlochen that I remember seeing my first salad bar in a restaurant, although common today, it was still a new idea back then.

Later in the spring I would return to Interlochen as the lighting designer for a tour of the Michigan Dance Ensemble.
I drove up the day before the concert with my assistant, an undergraduate design major, and worked to ready the theatre for the concert.
It was nice to see Interlochen in the spring and it was a welcome getaway just before the craziness of my last few months at Michigan as I finished up my MFA Thesis.
Evidently there had been some incident involving a student and teacher during the time between my visits and there were no students are the party for the dancers after the show this time.

Of course Theatre is a small world and I would run into the woman who was the Technical Director at Interlochen about 10 years later.
I was on a search committee for the Dance Department at Brockport and she was a finalist for the job.

Also I know that Susan, the girl who was my assistant back then, has been working as a company manager on various Dance and Theatre tours over the last 30 years and about twenty years ago I saw her name in the New York Times as part of an article reporting on the stupid and dangerous things that construction workers in the city do.
The idiots were doing things like throwing the lids of 5 gallon pails off of buildings like Frisbees into the people and street below.




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