The Voice of the Prairie, Fall 1995

The summer of 1995 we had no show at the college for the second year in a row.

I spent my time trying to make sure the renovations of the Mainstage Theatre were going well.

I met several times trying to ensure that the new lighting catwalk’s problems could be overcome.

I addition to the many issues of the building renovations there were going to be big staff changes in the fall of 1995.

In addition to the sudden loss of the scene designer we also lost our production manager/shop foreman who left to take a new job at Ithaca College.

A temporary scene designer was found and a search for a full time replacement would soon begin with me has the chair of the search committee.

The choice of The Voice of the Prairie by John Olive worked well for our first fall production in the Black Box theatre.

Note student working up on the Old Grid.

There were only four actors in the cast and the scene design used a unit set with several moving pieces to change the look of the space.

I remember that all of the students did a good job both on and off stage.

The scenic design was mostly a large barn-like wall with a large sliding door and a smaller door that had to fly in and out in a space without a fly system.

I worked with several of my advanced students to make the several scenic challenges, including the flying door, work smoothly.

The show had both  student lighting and sound designers who did a good job.

We had used the Black Box Theatre for three “Mainstage” productions my first few years at Brockport but it had been a while since we had used it.

After our more recent renovations forced us to use the Black Box Theatre again,  one director found that he liked it and has used it several times even after the renovation were done.

Some productions work much better in the intimate Black Box Theatre than on the larger Mainstage.

The building renovations along with other issues made it was a difficult time for the department.

Because the Arts for Children faculty were made into their own area for a few years, our department was down to just four full time faculty, several adjuncts, a guest designer and myself.

We could have had more issues with unhappy students because of the loss of a popular teacher and other staff losses, but our low number of majors at the time and the fact many others had graduated left few hold overs who might be unhappy but they all stepped up and help keep things going.

A Disturbance in the Force

The shows in the spring of 1995 should have been more eventful to me but there was several distractions going on at that time.

One of our teachers was up for tenure at the time but he seemed to have several some personal troubles at the time and choose to leave Brockport.

This of course became a Disturbance in the Force of our department as we figured out what was going on and what we would do to continue on.

At the same time planning for the long awaited renovations to the theatre were underway.

This first renovation was to remove the dropped ceiling over the main seating area because it contained lots of asbestos.

A metal lighting catwalk and laddered up to it were to be installed.

The original plan called for the work to be done over the summer but it was expanded into the fall semester.

I remember that a year or two earlier some “suit” with a clipboard and tape measure showed up one day and was looking around the theatre so I asked him what he was doing and if he need some help.

He talked about some upcoming renovations that no one else had heard of yet and I forgot about until a few years later when it came to pass.

As more information about the renovation became clear I had to fight with the college to make some changes to the planned new catwalk as the one designed would not be usable.

The new metal catwalk would be very safe as it ran across the lighting cove opening but the problem was they was no place to hang the lights.

There was to be safety rail every six inches from the bottom to the top.

They suggested adding a pipe outside the railing to hang the lights but when I asked how we would get them there they said that they would get back to me.

Not waiting for their answer I went to the University at Buffalo and took photos of the lighting catwalks in their new theatre to show what was needed.

As changes were made but a second problem came up.

The planned new drop ceiling would extend out so far from the lighting catwalk as to block the stage lights from being able to be focused on the stage.

Instead of cutting back the ceiling their solution was to weld another pipe a foot outside of the catwalk forcing my students to lean out of the catwalk to focus the lights.

So much for safety.

I would finally get the college to cut back the lip of the drop ceiling 20 years during another round of renovations.

To accommodate the renovations we had to make changes to our productions as we could not use the mainstage theatre and moved the first production in the fall to the Black Box Theatre.

The selected season included another production of A Christmas Carol but that could not be done in the Black Box.

The department arranged to do our second show in the dance theatre but A Christmas Carol was too big for that stage and so we change the show to Twas the Night Before Christmas a children’s show.

Through some negotiations we ended up producing the play in the dance theatre in Hartwell Hall.

After we chose our season of plays I had a ”Vision” for a concept for the design for the poster for one of the plays.

Being a stamp collector I happened to see a set of Australian stamps that honored the golden days of radio of radio.

I worked the concept into designs for the other three plays and submitted my rough designs to the college design team that produced the final posters.

The posters were already finished by the time we had to change the Christmas play and a new design and poster was made.

The 1995-96 season would start with the Mainstage theatre under construction, a new scenic designer and some other unforeseen challenges.

So for Brockport nothing new.

Spring 2019

My 37^th year at The College Brockport is now complete.

The productions were good this year and I enjoyed working my students. 

(Which is not always the case; you know who you are.)

I am thinking about retiring in three years after a nice even forty years of teaching, but we will see.

This spring we had two good department productions plus the students produced a nice production of Spring Awakening.

In February we did our 11^th biennial Festival of Ten which we started back in 1999.

Our last play of the year was Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage.

Mixed in with the plays were several music concerts and student projects.

Coming up next year:

Department of Theatre and Music Studies

Theatrical Productions for the 2019-20 Season

Stupid F#*king Bird

by Aaron Posner

Directed by Frank Kuhn

October 4-6 and 17-19, 2019

Twelfth Night

by William Shakespeare

Directed by GEVA Guest Artist

November 22-24 and December 5-7, 2019

Crimes of the Heart

by Beth Henley

Directed by Michael C. Krickmire

February 28-29 and March 1, 5-7, 2020

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Music & Lyrics by William Finn, Book by Rachel Sheinkin

Directed by Ruth Childs

April 24-26, 30 and May 1-2, 2020

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For more photos and information check out our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/brockporttheatredept/

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Spring 1995 Productions

The plays for the spring of 1995 were fine but poorly planned and advertised.

Our two productions were Antigone and Another Antigone, yes the same show I worked on just a few months before.

Now you would think that would be an obvious PR opportunity and we could get some good and free press and a bigger audience.

You could think that but you would be wrong.

PR has never been our strong point and there have been many missed chances over the years.

Every once in a blue moon we do get some good press but it really has increased our audience numbers to our regular shows.

Musicals have always done better.

First mistake, Antigone was done as a traditional Greek Tragedy complete with period dress and in masks.

Great for teaching acting students, bad for drawing any audience.

We had a student designer who did a great job and the set looked fine.

The faculty scene designer did the lighting for the production.

The play was well done, looked good and even smelled good as they burned some incense onstage before each show.

I do not know how we came to do Another Antigone that season as it replaced another play that had been previously been selected. 

The set was designed by another student and she did a fine job but it did not have the magic of the production I had worked on the previous summer in Connecticut.

It was not the students fault as she just gave the director what he wanted.

The setting was a literal interpretation of the functional requirements of the script.

The set had a turntable with two small box sets along with two curved brick benches, one on each side of the stage, that were used for several outdoor scenes.

Surprise! Yes we still have the two brick benches and they have been reused several times over the past twenty-four years.   

I think we have an office desk that was made for the show as well.

The production was fine, not good, not bad just Okay.

I can not find photos of this play at this time.

There was much more going on at the college outside of these two plays that would bring major changes to our department over the next few months.

Big changes ahead . . . .

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                ``            

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Recycled Set

I enjoy writing my Blog but often get side tracked as my regular readers can well note.

I posted photos from my last two productions at the college but I have no funny stories to tell you about.

The most interesting thing is how we were able to recycle the set from one into the other.

I have noted many times in my Blog how I have been able to reuse sets pieces from past productions.

This practice saves both time and money although there are times we choose to build from scratch as a teaching moment for our students..

The scene designer for the The Triangle Factory Fire Project design a set that was made up of approximately 40 two wide flats ranging in length from 1’-2” up to 12’-0”.

A little less than half of them came from our stock.

The scene designer for the next play, Prelude to a Kiss wanted to use a multi-panel projection screen and decided to re-use the flats from the previous production.

We cut some of the flats to new sizes and only had to make one from scratch.
We had to remove the newspaper that was pasted on the flats for The Triangle Factory Fire Project.
I bought special wallpaper removing spray and tools, but it was just plain old water and elbow grease that worked best.
Once dry, a bit of light sanding and a fresh coat of grey paint made the flats ready to use again.

Rear View

We did have to make 65 sections of threaded rod cut to about 10 inches long that connected the panels and kept them evenly spaced apart.

I think both sets looked good and worked well for the shows.

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Prelude to a Kiss, December 2018

Prelude to a Kiss

by Craig Lucas

December 2018

Lighting Design and Technical Direction

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Triangle Factory Fire Project, October 2018

 Triangle Factory Fire Project
by Christopher Piehler in collaboration with Scott Alan Evans

 October 2018 

Lighting Design and Technical Direction

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