Pericles or How I Learned to Stitch

As promised, an entire blog post dedicated to my design of Shakespeare's lesser known play, Pericles, at Shady Shakespeare this summer.

The summary of the story is that King Pericles goes on a journey to find a wife and ends up visiting all kinds of strange lands. The director for this show, Shady's resident dramaturg, had been working on the concept of Pericles being set in space rather than the Mediterranean for seven years, and finally it came to fruition in this production. Each land Pericles encounters represented  a sci-fi/cult-classic/other planet from many well-known movies and TV shows, from Flash Gordon to Star Wars to Mortal Kombat.

I became the Costume Designer for this show after the concept had been fleshed out in design meetings. And while I did create the sketches and make some artistic decisions, I cannot take credit for much of the over-arching concept of what lands would be represented and by whom. The whole thing was an adventure that rivaled the epic story Shakespeare wrote.

Pericles' home planet of Tyre was that of the venerable Star Wars Jedis. He wore the many-layered Jedi tunic, obi, shoulder armor, and robe. And his most trusted advisers were modeled after very iconic Jedis from the many movies.

He visits the land of Ming the Merciless as well as a Klingon planet.

As you can see, the costumes were the most important part of telling the story of where Pericles journeyed--the scenery was a unit set and had only a few elements that changed.

Perhaps my and the audience's favorite part of the entire show was the lightsaber fight.

Yes.

Lightsaber.

Fight.

Each Knight was a different kind of sci-fi character, much decided by the actor themselves.

From Left to Right we have: A Tron-ish, Mandolorian-ish fighter; A White Samurai; A Darth Maul-ish Character; A Matrix-inspired Fighter; & Our lady fighter in a bit of goth mixed with Tron.

I'll leave you with one more image that needs no explanation.

Please visit my website for more!

The project was eventful and hard. The performance space was in the Sanborn County Park in Saratoga, and so everything was remote and out of the way. I'm sure I shouldn't assume all summer stock Shakespeare will be like this, but I don't know if this kind of work is really for me. In the end I did 10 loads of laundry and took pounds of dry cleaning to the cleaners.... Can't wait to put this all behind me.

Radio Silence Over

You know how it is, you put something off for so long that getting back to it becomes harder and harder. Especially as a blogger, where do I begin in the time that I've been away. How long do I push the rewind button?

So much has happened.

I finished up the drop I last wrote about and never got any kind of production photos.

I supervised the costumes for Broadway By the Bay's The Marvelous Wonderettes and taught children at Pied Piper Players's inaugural summer camp.

Teaching children about theatre is the most rewarding, and I had my first experience working with a child with Asberger's. It was a challenge, but I felt very good about how everything went.

This is the cast and staff of Charlotte's Web. I love this picture of everyone and you can see the awesome backdrop the kids designed and painted!

And our small but mighty cast of How to Eat Like a Child. You can't see it here, but they also designed and painted two legs. This was a great group.

Possibly the most exciting bit of work I did this summer was a design for Pericles at Shady Shakespeare Theatre Company. I have some great images from that show and will be uploading them in a blog post all their own.

So, this summer was a success in the freelancing world, although I nearly dropped dead the week that Pericles was teching and we were finishing up the second session of camp. I've got some fun projects on the horizon, most notably working on BBBay's A Chorus Line and a few actual designs. I'm also going to try to get back to blogging. No more excuses because we're all caught up!

Oh, also of note: Working on my biggest design yet: My wedding!!!

Why Theatre People Will Never Be Rich

I know it's really no secret that most of us who work in theatre are not getting rich. But this week I had a realization of one of the reasons this is true: we're awesomely giving. Not only are theatre people generally willing to take on projects for less money than any reasonable human being, we do things for free and/or trade. I've seen this latter act of giving first-hand in the last week.

I am working as the charge artist for a production of The Gondoliers over at Lyric Theatre. My primary responsibility is to paint a 29'x30' drop for the show that will look like this:

Gondoliers Backdrop

When tasked with this job, I asked to paint the drop horizontally because of the feathery quality of the colors. Immediately the TD for the show mentioned using the floor at Musson, a theatre supply company here in San Jose. At first I was worried about how much that would cost, but it turns out that Musson owes Lyric a favor, in fact, they owe Lyric a floor. At some point in the last year, Musson made a boo-boo and had to scramble to paint three drops for a client in less than a week. Unfortunately, their shop floor couldn't accommodate that many drops in such a short period of time. So, they called up Lyric and borrowed their shop/rehearsal space. For free. And now, when Lyric needs a floor for me to paint their drop, I'm at Musson at no charge for a week. For those of you who don't live in the world of theatre, when I painted a drop for CTC, they paid $100 for a week of use of Ohlone College's paint frame (and that was pretty discounted). So, even a highly successful business will offer up their time and space to help out the small theatres. And that's awesome.

Another, more extreme, example of the tradition of giving time without compensation manifested itself when I met the lovely ladies at The Costume Cadre, a collection of independent designers who have pulled their talents and resources to work in the Bay Area as designers, drapers, and stitchers. I met the effervescent Rita when I went over to see about Shady Shakespeare's stock and resources. And she was so generous in what she offered up from the Cardre's supplies/stock/resources to me. But, more impressively, she talked about the time she has dedicated to organizing, stocking, and cataloging the entirety of Shady's costume collection free of charge. That's a big project even in a small stock.

There isn't much else to report, really just wanted to share this realization that from big to small, we're all in the same boat. It's nice to see companies, individuals, and production houses supporting one another as we strive to make this world a better place with our art.

Ask and You Shall Receive or How I Became a Freelance Theatre Artist

So that we are all on the same page, let me recap that I'm wrapping up week three of my open-ended hiatus from CTC. And I've got my form all ready to send to unemployment. And I've still got bills to pay. And CT and I've pretty much decided we're going to (have to) stick it out in our one room apartment for a little while longer.

Our apartment. That is not our bed, just our couch.

But in true self-sufficient, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-fashion, I've been sending out applications and résumés since before I was officially on hiatus. I am happy to report that all of my efforts and frantic e mailing has paid off. Here is how I've been making/planning to make money since April 23:

Week One: Résumé and application blasts to theatres and craigslistings all over the place. By Tuesday I had two interviews with non-theatre companies, one an supplementary education company (read: after-school enrichment center) and one with a print company. The first interview I apparently bombed and the second, the print company, I was hired on the spot. Hooray! I started training the next day, Wednesday. For two days I gave it a go. At $12 an hour, doing graphic design and answering phones and running xeroxes didn't seem so bad. Except I was going to be the only person doing that and was expected to be so awesome I could replace the woman who'd been working for that particular company for over three years and knew all of the account abbreviations and quirks like the back of her hand. It wasn't looking good.

Also on Wednesday, I went to an interview at SJ Rep for a box office assistant position. Many of you may remember I did a stint at The Dallas Opera's box office when I lived in Texas and loved! it! Turns out SJ Rep uses the same ticketing program, had someone leaving the fold, and hey, they wanted to hire me. $9 an hour with hours fluctuating from 10 to 30 a week... well, I thought, it's something. And it's something that is flexible and low-stress enough that I could do other things. So Friday morning I quit the print company, thanked them for the opportunity, and drove to San Mateo to open Pied Piper Player's Once Upon a Mattress.
 

The Queen tries to make Winnifred as sleepy as possible.

Week Two: More résumés and applications including bookstores and Starbucks. Pretty much anywhere I thought I might be employable, I applied. But things that week were pretty low-key and boring. I worked on my friend Margo's website and even my own website. (BTW, now offering portrait and wedding packages!) On Thursday I trained at the SJ Rep Box Office and it was like riding a bike. Sure, there were things that they do differently than the Opera, but it was pretty easy and I felt good about my choice to take the job. And on Sunday I struck Once Upon a Mattress and got the last of my paycheck from PPP and made plans to talk about other work with the company.

Week Three: (That's this week) Everything started to fall into place. Monday I had lunch with the Artistic Director of PPP and we worked out a plan for me to come aboard as the Production Manager for the company, teach during their conservatory, and designing on a regular basis. Tuesday I went to visit family in Oroville.

My sister Hannah and nephew Hunter

Wednesday I worked at the box office. And then yesterday, Thursday, I got a slew of e mails and had two meetings that resulted in 3 gigs (one painting a backdrop, one designing costumes, and one costume supervising) and a call to work over-hire on a load-out for a theatrical supply place in the area. Bada-bing, Bada-boom.

I've done the math. It's not spectacular money for the amount of work, but it's close to what I was making before. And it's on projects ranging from Shakespeare to Gilbert & Sullivan. Which is pretty neat. The thing that has kept me from doing freelance work before is the difficulty at keeping sane. What do I mean by this? Well, in a 9-5 job, even in theatre, there is structure. You go to work, you complete your work, you go home. Sure there are crazy days during tech week and strike, but those are planned in advance, you see them coming, and time is allotted for them and subsequent recovery. As a freelancer, that is on you. Working with five different companies means that you have to be sure that tech weeks aren't going to collide and that you'll have enough time to complete fittings and paint flats and whatever has to happen. And then there is the travel time. And gas. When you work at one theatre you go there and come home. Some traveling may occur for the company, but life is contained. When you work for five different companies you're running all over the city, or in my case, all over the bay area, trying to get everything sorted and done. Sure some work can happen at home (especially costume-related work), but mostly you go to their space and use their tools and then you drive somewhere else the next day... it gets overwhelming.

But perhaps the biggest stress about being self-employed, working gig to gig, are taxes. I've never had more than one 1099 a year, so while a pain, it was pretty straightforward and didn't change my taxes that much. But with this much gig work, I'm going to have to do quarterly taxes or I'm going to end up owing hundreds of dollars I've already spent come April of 2013. I'm not sure why companies can't take taxes out. Okay, I'm sure it has something to do with paperwork and calculations that are far beyond just issuing a check, but can't there be a way to make this easier? Can't there be a way to take the burden of this off the artist? More importantly so that the artist doesn't accidentally spend money that really has to go to the federal government??? For now I just automatically deduct 20% out of the fee and put it in savings. And now with quarterly taxes, I won't get hit with a big OUCH! next year.

So now I can call myself a freelance theatre artist. And really raise my parents' anxiety levels. Woo.

The Great Job Search

Here's the low-down: I'm unemployed. Well, underemployed might be a better term. This week is week two of the open-ended hiatus I was put on from CTC when I turned down the opportunity to design their Summer Rep Shows (more on this at a later date). This is the second hiatus I've been put on, but the first without a fixed end and that involves losing my health insurance. Times are lean in theatre, it would seem.

And so! I've been diligently applying for jobs, both in and outside of the theatre. I'm in Silicon Valley, so I've hit the big places: Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc etc and the national companies: Starbucks, Target, etc etc and the theatres. Oh, have I hit the theatres. From actual listings on places like TCG's ArtSearch to Bay Area Theatre Bums to individual websites of each theatre I have come across (I've got them all bookmarked). It's a lot of work applying and sending out feeler résumés, especially when there isn't much to show for it. And you're stressed out about how on earth you're going to pay your rent in one of the most expensive regions in the world.

The good news: I found a part-time job at San Jose Repertory Theatre in their box office.

The bad news: It only pays $9/hr and my hours will fluctuate from 10 to 30 in any given week.

The also good news: My partner in crime, C.T., got promoted last week and is guaranteed 40 hours+ a week and is making somewhere close to, or over, $15/hr.

The really bad news: This is still not going to be enough.

Let's set aside the fact that I'm back to being uninsured (I had a bunch of physicals and exams before I lost my insurance and so far I'm healthy) because, well, that comes with the territory and I've been there before. And let's just talk about what it means to be living in a 450 square foot, studio apartment which is about to cost us $1050/month and I'm only guaranteed to bring in $90/week before taxes. What, huh? This is a low-point. This is why I am applying to complete reach-jobs at the tech companies. I don't really care about the perks of working at those companies. I just know they are stable and will pay me the living wage of this area for one simple reason: They are the reason that it costs so frickin' much to live here in the first place.

From the article "High Cost of Living Shrinks Silicon Valley's Sizable Paychecks" by David Schepp at Aol.com.

This whole situation has me, for the first time in my life, seriously kicking myself for getting a degree in theatre.

When I chose my major at Grinnell I did it with pride and a bit of rebellion swelling in my heart because I knew that it was a pretty stupid field to go into for financial security, etc. But I was young and wanted to follow my heart. And I didn't want to choose a career path just because it would make me money. I wanted to go out into the world and make art and do something meaningful and be poor because I chose to be poor (not, as was my mother's case, because life sucks and circumstances bore her into decades of abject poverty and welfare). I was your typical, naive idealist.

And when I decided to go to graduate school it was with a more tempered idealism, but idealism nonetheless. I felt that my Master's degree would grant me some kind of security, some options that would be more stable, and help quiet my step-mother's fear of my looming destitution.

Even applying for summer employment during graduate school didn't have me second-guessing myself. I was confident this path would be awesome, if also frugal. Then, upon graduating from UNCG, I landed a job as the Resident Designer/Painter/Teacher at a children's theatre in sunny California. I wasn't going right into teaching! I was getting to move back to the West Coast (a dream I'd been harboring since I first hunkered down in the Midwest for college)! Things were going to be awesome!

Except it's expensive to live in this part of the country. And the recession is still taking its toll on the "unnecessary" items including the obvious: the arts, and the not so obvious: school bus transportation (important when you work at a children's theatre). But even two weeks ago when I heard Republican Candidate Mitt Romney talk about choosing an engineering major over his own field, English, I firmly believed that I had made no mistake in my choice of study. (And was pretty incensed about his statements as a mark of privilege as well as the wrong mindset when you want to have a society that also has beauty. Why not, instead, talk about needing to provide funding for art, writing, those non-engineer fields... but I digress.)

It's funny how money, or the lack-there-of, will make you question everything you hold dear. But unlike many of my posts in the past where I wonder about continuing in this field because I've been unhappy with this, that, or the other project, I'm now wondering how I can continue when I can't even afford to buy myself new bras. I've been so fortunate that the last few times I've been in this mess I've had a partner to help support me as I get back on my feet (ironically enough that time also ended with me starting work in a box office). This time it's tougher because we're living somewhere more expensive and C.T. is just now getting into making good money. We're going to make it. We have to. But as I look at job postings many things cross my mind that never did before: Maybe I should consider getting out of theatre. Maybe I should consider getting out of non-profit. Maybe I should consider moving back to the South where the cost of living is lower. Maybe I made a mistake.

Maybe I made a mistake.

No one likes to admit that they were wrong. Especially not me.

But all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and keep sending out those résumés.

I'll keep you posted.

Pish Posh

Check it, I don't have the time to write my blog. I'm working my usual 9-5 job at CTC and I'm working for Pied Piper Players in San Mateo on the weekends for their upcoming production of Once Upon a Mattress. Working seven days a week stinks.

And then you get your paycheck(s).

 And you realize why do the things you do (MONEY!!) and that you are getting paid to do what you love.

Nevertheless, I'm not getting paid to do this, so it's not important (sarcasm). Also, it's hard to avoid talking about things that people could take wrong. I work in a field that is built on who you know and schmoozing. And we're a bunch of artists (i.e. have the emotional maturity of a five-year-old). So writing about the things I think about day in and day out, well, you can tell what editing those thoughts has done to the blog. However, I'm determined to carve out time to write again.

Today I'm going to just give an update about the shows I'm currently doing:

The Life and Times of Ben Franklin, AKA "Ben Franklin" + 6 "Apprentices" tell you about all the cool stuff Mr. Franklin did in his life. And I get the opportunity to make a rear-projection screen out of ironed wax paper. Yep, ironed, basket-woven strips of wax paper. Pictures forthcoming (assuming it stays in one piece once we install it). (Also, I get the opportunity to stupidly design a somewhat touring show, and make a "printing press". Also fun.)

Pirates of Penzance, Jr., AKA "The Great Spring Musical" for Sunnyvale-area students. For this I'm costume designing, which is quite a test of patience and organization. And my alteration skills (hemming a 6-panel skirt 8 inches without cutting!). It's great fun. We go into tech for this show in about 2 weeks.

Once Upon a Mattress, AKA The true story of the "Princess and the Pea." This is the one I'm doing with PPP and it's been fun because I get to work with great and varied parent-volunteers every weekend. Apparently I'm awesome and have us 3 weeks ahead of "schedule" (if we refer to previous production "schedules", or lack there of). Little do they know that my organization is a ruse. Also, side note, this was the last show that I did in high school and my scenic design was pretty lame (still blame it on the director's insistence that though she was transplanting the story to the 1980s, the set still had to be a castle) and so now I get some redemption. Sweet. :)

Lastly, I wish I'd been able to go to SETC this year, and, for that matter, was getting to go to USITT down in Long Beach. Oh well.

I leave you with a picture of Kevin Kline in Pirates of Penzance because, well, he's dreamy and we're ripping off his style pretty clearly in our production:

What Would Hallie Do?

Things are bleak in the world right now. The economy is still recovering, the arts are still suffering, things are still tough.

Today, as I drove home from a long, long day, I racked my brain over how to put into words the turmoil of life. And I thought of Hallie. I often find myself thinking about her statement that "Theatre, when it's good, is always dangerous" when I feel lost. When I question why I am in this field and what on earth I do it for.

Hallie Flanagan's Antony & Cleopatra 1934 at Vassar

While I don't really know what Hallie would do in my position, I know she wouldn't give up. She'd continue to pour her heart into the theatre, believing that it is important to explore our world through the theatre. She'd probably stage some amazing piece about the economic crisis, subverting all kinds of things, maybe even convince Obama to resurrect the Federal Theatre Project, and generally be a bad ass. While I'm not likely to do much of that (yet), it's good to be reminded of Hallie's spirit and gumption.

As a very intelligent person tells me often, you have to work your way up in the game of life. While I know that I've put in many hours on the low end of the totem pole, sometimes part of the low end of the pole is the hard-knock part of life where you scramble to make ends meet while doing the thing you are most passionate about (sometimes all over the Bay Area). It's rough, but paying your dues only makes you stronger and better. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. That, and asking what Hallie would do.

Happy Saturday or How to Keep Up Morale When Nothing Else is Going Right

Fired. I am fired. From writing about my career and thus thinking deeply about it. There is really no excuse, but let me tell you a a little bit about why I haven't written since November.

Do you recall that production of The Cherry Orchard that I was working on in the summer? Well, for reasons I still do not fully understand, I faced a battle to get paid my fee when everything was done. I did, in fact, get paid (Hallelujah!) but it really put a damper on my feelings about working in theatre. The occurrence called into question the integrity of the field and the economic viability. And since then I've been thinking of a way to talk about the situation without 1. whining or 2. bad-mouthing the whole experience and possibly getting sued for libel. I wanted to write up a post about contracts and wording for contracts, but, as is obvious from the situation I faced, I have no clue about designer contracts. (I didn't ever sign one-- yes, yes, I know!) And then I wanted to write about artists supporting each other and everyone being open and honest when financials don't measure up, but, well, since I don't understand what happened, again, I didn't want to possibly get in trouble with libel. Combined with the rather rude comment I got on my post about sewing made me just feel like there was no good to come out of this field right now.

And then fast-forward to my life right now, and, well, things have been looking bleak.

That's why I've made a concerted effort to look on the bright side of things. Because of this, I'm bringing back the blog (especially after reading The Pioneer Woman's "Ten Things I've Learned About Blogging") and a tradition I started when I was trying to decide on a pie recipe for Thanksgiving: "Happy Saturday." Basically, when I was trying to find the right recipe for a Turkey Day Apple Pie, I had to test them out. But I didn't want to eat lots of pie. So after one successful Friday night of pie-baking, I brought half of the pies to work at CTC for the cast/crew/whoever was in the building. I wrote a note with a description of the pies: "Happy Saturday!" Because, let's be honest, working on Saturday stinks. I baked pretty regularly on Friday evening (who can go out partying when you have to be at work the next morning and either use power tools or at least paint within the lines?) and brought in a portion of the goodies to work Saturday morning. And, not surprisingly, the company members at CTC started to look forward to this little ray of sugary delight at the theatre on Saturdays. After Christmas I decided to stop because, well, it does cost me money and time. And people were sad. Combined with the very arduous task of our annual Fund Drive and our bleak financial situation, I needed to resurrect my baking. And so "Happy Saturday" returned this past weekend with Cranberry-Orange Coffee Cake and Apple-Cinnamon Coffee Cake. It was a rousing success. This time I put out a donation can so that people can help pay for the treats if they can, and, well, along with the compliments for the goodies, I got some money to help offset the tradition. And it's awesome. I'm happy to be back in the kitchen as it were, and I know that it's something everyone enjoys looking forward to.

This is all to say, I'm glad I can bring some good to my place of work, especially when I could just be a dark, doom-and-gloom rain cloud. This is not to say that things are peachy and I'm happy with all of the decisions being made by management, but I want to make sure my peers--my company--have some happy in their lives. So, here's to an awesome tradition and pictures of last week's Happy Saturday treat and recipes from The Joy of Cooking:

Apple-Cinnamon Coffee Cake

 

Cranberry-Orange Coffee Cake

Have all ingredients at room temp.
Preheat the oven to 350°
Grease a 9-inch square baking pan or a 9-inch spring form pan

Combine
.5 c sugar
2 T all-purpose or rice flour
2 T unsalted butter
Blend until crumbly then add
.5 t cinnamon
(.25 to .5 c of nuts if you'd like)
This is your streusel topping. Set aside.

Whisk together:

1.5 c of flour
1.25 c of sugar
2 t baking powder
.5 t baking soda
.25 t salt
(1 t cinnamon for Apple Cake)

Beat well in a large bowl:
1 c sour cream
2 lg eggs
(1 T grated orange zest for Cranberry-Orange Cake)

Add the dry ingredients and beat until just smooth. Overbeating tends to toughen the cake. Spread batter in the greased pan.

Add

2.5 c dried cranberries or diced, peeled apples (depending on type of cake)


Sprinkle with streusel.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Cool on a rack.

Enjoy with your awesome friends!