SETC 2011 Atlanta

I'm in my office, FINALLY! really preparing to go. I am fighting the office printer to see if I can get some of my things done here rather than at Kinkos, but it does not look promising.

(I wanted to link to one of the pages, but Facebook's new photo viewing BS won't let me. WTF? Facebook. You are annoying.)

Anyway, SETC is going to be a crazy experience this year. I've entered two boards into the design competition: Oklahoma! and The Waiting Room. And signed up for Job Contact AND am presenting my winning paper on feminist design ideas. I'm not sure I'm going to have time to do any kind of workshops. :P Oh well. It should be fun, right?

Then I'll have 2 days off before USITT in Charlotte. Fortunately, I'm just going to USITT--no presentations, nothing. Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy it.

Wow, I thought I would have more to say, but, no. After the conference, I'll have plenty to say. :)

It's a Busy Time

I want to write so many things, but I fear my brain isn't really awake this early in the morning.

I have been hard at work getting Pericles going and, hopefully, finished. We go into tech in 2 weeks. I will admit I've been a bit lax about it, trying to let the other students involved (like my Props Master & Paint Charge) be, well, in charge. But I think we're going to have step up our game. The show is deceptively complex. The two rakes, large wheel and fabric make it seem like there's not much going on. But this show is going to be about the details. A Shakespearean Odyssey, Pericles visits at least 5 different locales during the course of the action, and we've got to make the audience believe with props and furniture (and costumes) that we've gone somewhere new despite the lack of scenic shift. Hopefully it will all come out nicely as this is my last scenic design in my foreseen future.

I'm also in the midst of the design process for Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams. I am, shock! amaze!, designing the costumes for the show and having a good time trying to infuse them with meaning and character. Below are my thumbnails for Lady, the main character. She has these three costumes and then we see her 2 other times in her nightgown/robe. The idea is that she begins in a drab, unflattering dress (much like the other characters in the town) as she has been forced to conform to the societal norms of this small-town (aka Hell). But as she blossoms under the attentions of Val (the wandering drifter) and attempts to recapture her father's wine garden, her silhouette becomes more rounded and fanciful. She becomes more feminine and womanly and happy, despite her possibly unhappy demise.




The other character that I thought I'd share is the Conjure Man, to me the most interesting character and costume. He is the only Black character in the show, despite the script being infused with racial themes. The history of conjuring and conjure men is a part of Black spirituality and religion that traveled with them from Africa and became infused with the Christian and Native American beliefs and religions they were exposed to. Thus, I have tried to layer upon the Black body (which itself has social and racial implications) notions of the Native American and Colonial influences, making the Conjure Man not of this world, something apart, and yet very much influenced by it. We are still working out the details of his coat (does it make him too attached to civilization?) but this is really close to what you're going to see, I figure.



Other than the two shows, I am working on my 3 presentations for SETC. I have the two shows that I am competing with: Oklahoma! and The Waiting Room. And then I'll be presenting my paper on Feminist Design as well. (And doing Job Contact, which is a crazy free-for-all of talking to potential employers). I have a feeling that my SETC is going to be jam-packed! And it is in only 4 weeks!

On that note, I'm going to go do some more work. Or yoga. Perhaps I'll do some yoga to start the day off right.

Feminist Validation

Almost a year ago I wrote a post I titledTempestuas Validation. In it I explored how not being named one of the winning entries at KC/ACTF had crushed my ego. It was introspective but fairly mopey. Since writing that I went to the SETC conference in Kentucky and was awarded second place in the graduate scenic design competition for my design for The Seagull. And I researched and wrote a paper about the ideas of feminist design. Which I submitted to three conferences. A few weeks ago, MATC sent me a rejection e mail.

Today, 6 weeks away from the 2011 SETC convention in Atlanta I received an e mail congratulating me on receiving the Young Scholar's Award for my paper on feminist design. Even before I get to the convention where I will have 2 designs in the design competition (Oklahoma! and The Waiting Room) I have already won. My work and my deep thoughts about design and the design process have been validated. I am going to present, to goodness knows how many people, about my search for feminist design. I have been having trouble sitting still and concentrating this afternoon...

I think the most rewarding thing about the news is not the $225 cash prize, but that I am starting to feel the crossover of my academic pursuits and thoughts and my artistic endeavors. I am starting to feel like an artist-scholar. I can show how theatre design doesn't have to be brainless and about making a pretty picture, but about dramaturgical research and in-depth analysis of how our world operates. This is exciting, and I am, admittedly, geeking out. I love all of the academic work I've had my hands in over the years. I honestly miss it when I have been told to just produce sketches. In a perfect world I would be able to do lots of research and mull things over before designing the scenery or costumes for a play. Sadly, theatre doesn't afford that kind of luxury (and very few people would take it if they could, instead cramming more jobs together in order to pay the bills).

All of this is interesting as I start work on my next and final design at UNCG, costumes for Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending. I'm very excited about the project because the director wants to break away from the expectations of it being a realistic play, instead delving into the illusions and motifs and the undertones of the Orpheus myth (and racial and economic commentary being made). As the costume designer, I really feel like I'm going to be able to apply some of the feminist design questions. Things, finally, feel like they are coming together. It is a good way to wrap up my MFA. Everything seems to be culminating and I'm having to bring all of my education and skills to bear. Hopefully with very exciting results.

An Oklahoma Good-bye

Alright, last time I'll talk about Oklahoma!, promise.

Tonight we struck the set. The turn around for the show, because it was in our big roadhouse, was so short it was like giving birth directly over the grave (isn't that some famous saying by one of those crazy theatre people, like Artaud?). Either way, the show felt like a success in many, many ways and I am happy with it over all.

I went to see the show twice (on opening on Wednesday and then again on Friday night). I saw it from the balcony on Friday and was struck with how much more rich some of the moments felt by my closer proximity to the actors and the new view I had because I'd been sitting mid-orchestra all through tech.

I think that the director, my good friend Bryan, did a fantastic job directing the show and making it relevant for today. He lead the actors in some very exciting directions, finding the poignant and hilarious moments that needed to be highlighted. As usual, the lighting design was beautiful (even if we had a few snafus), and the costume design was also very pretty. I felt honored to be a part of the design team for the show and have the talented actors populate the world that I had created.

Now I move on to my lighting design for The Waiting Room by Lisa Loomer. So far I feel a bit like I'm stumbling through the dark (pun intended) because I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to lighting design. I am hoping that I get the same joy out of having a design like this realized, but light is so ephemeral, it's difficult to tell.

For now, I'm going to sleep.

Ooooooooook-lahoma!

It's tech weekend (well, right now it is first dress) of the long awaited thesis Oklahoma!. It's been an interesting couple of days; I believe I've forgotten what the real sky looks like.

The most interesting thing about a show like this is the number of elements that have to come together in order to make it work. Obviously there are the scenic elements, but not until the lights were added yesterday and today did my design truly begin to take shape. And tonight we have the costumes; it's nice to see Laurie in a dress and apron rather than sport pants and shirt.

Over the next two days the last touches are going to come together (hopefully). And then we get to add the best part of the process: the audience. I'm looking forward to opening for so many reasons.

Now back to paying attention. We're at the dream ballet now:

Feminist Design & Design Realized

This is going to be quick since I am running behind today already and, well, there isn't much to say right this second because there is going to be a lot to say in about a week.

First thing, I am still reading Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit and I had a realization today about how useful this book is employing feminist design techniques and, thus, how much I wish I'd had this book when I wrote my paper last year. (And I'm attempting to get this paper presented at conferences... but have no time to update it with this new bit. Sadness.) Anyway, there was a passage today that specifically struct me as pertinent to my feminist design ponderings. In the chapter about spine, Tharp says the following:

"There's an obvious reason why, as a choreographer, I am constantly groping for a spine. Dance is preverbal; it doesn't have the writer's advantage of using language to establish meaning and intent. The vocabulary of dance is movement, not words. So I need something more in the form of an idea, an image, a memory, a metaphor to make my intentions comprehensible to the audience. I have to articulate this to myself because I won't be using words to articulate it in public."

In my notebook I wrote: Yes! This is why it is important to analyze your visual language as a female/feminist designer: you do not have words--it's all nonverbal! One must know your visual cues and those of the audience. Otherwise communication fails and either nothing is understood or the wrong thing is understood.

To elaborate, in Ringer's four questions about feminist design she calls on us to ask these questions: "How does visual language contribute to these explicit and implicit messages? How do I as a woman and designer relate to the visual language and the world around me? How do I visually process information?" In being aware of how I process visual language, I can better make decisions about how to communicate my ideas to the audience because I am cognizant of how visual language is created in myself and thus the population as a whole. And to be aware of how nonverbal the art of theatrical design is, is necessary in order to not just assume what I put on stage is going to make sense to the audience.

Take Oklahoma! for instance (which is the design realized part). I was giving a mini-talk about it to my stagecrafts class last week. I began by talking about my inspiration and process of turning that inspiration into a design. And then today, I got to see the theatrical realization of that design (in part) before the cast's first rehearsal in Aycock. The translation of my idea into reality has a bit of disconnect because the cast (as they are the only ones that have seen it yet) don't know the awe-inspiring, personal connection I have with the landscape of Northern California that I was inspired by. HOWEVER! My ability to interpret that into a majestic backdrop of sky and clouds atop a sumptuous yellow "waves of grain" gave them pause. They were swept up. I had achieved the awe-inspiring by creating the magic, even if the personal was left to be my own secret in my concept.

Now, think, if I had been more versed in how I viewed/interpreted/created the visual cues and how important my role as the nonverbal story-teller, how different (or better?) would my design be?

With this rolling around in my head I am ready to work on Pericles because nothing is getting by me now.

From Oklahoma! to Charlotte

Dear Readers (aka CT and Jenna), I had a great idea for a post. For about an hour and then it dropped from my mind. There are other things that I could write on but I fear they are too controversial and would be better left off of this public forum. So instead I offer you two things of note in my creative/theatrical life right now:

1. Oklahoma! is well underway, though painting is taking me much too much time. There has been a bit of an extreme learning curve trying to figure out how to paint new drops. I am working on drop #3 and it is taking a LONG time because not only is it new, it has to be painted relatively lightly so that it has a bit of transparency to it as it stands in for the cyc. The picture to the left, there, is the mid-stage drop, which was drop #1.

The other interesting bit pertaining to Oklahoma! (which opens in 3.5 weeks... have I mentioned that?) is that I am making a concerted effort to talk about it. I made sure I did a presentation to the cast, I am planning on bringing my model in for the stagecrafts class, and I have volunteered to be on the Q&A panel at the Super Saturday performance for local high schools on Oct 2. The reason is more than wanting to be self-centered about my work, but I feel like talking about a design is helpful for the next generation of designers as well as me. If I can explain my concept to people who are just starting to understand what a design concept is, then I feel I'll be able to articulate well to a director and the rest of the design team. Furthermore, there is so much more to a design than just what you see on stage, and I know that I want to pick the brain of designers after I see a particularly stunning production. Thus, I am offering my time to help my design live on as more than just a stage picture. I don't know if it will really be valuable, but, as Oklahoma! is my thesis, I figure this kind of work can't hurt.

2. I am also beginning to plan for the theatre conferences next year. I vowed after the last two years to not get caught off-guard by them, both in time-management and financial responsibility. I have decided that I will not attend KC/ACTF next year, in part because I feel I've out-grown it and also because it is all the way in Florida, which is a bit of a trek. Instead I am focusing my efforts on SETC, which was a great conference last year in Kentucky, and I have high hopes for the 2011 convention in Atlanta. I am also hoping to make it to USITT this year because it is in Charlotte, which is so close that it would seem a waste not to make an effort to take part in this professional theatre conference and expo. I'm honestly really excited about conferences this year and feel they are very important as part of professional development and learning. I am also working on polishing my feminist design paper from last semester in order to submit to the SETC emerging scholars panel and also the MATC emerging scholars work. Fingers crossed that perhaps I'm on my way to carving out an academic niche for myself. (And that I don't go bankrupt in the process).

That's about it on this front. I'm thinking I might post my work from my independent study this semester soon, so look for more artistic updates. But for now, I'm going to go wash Ultramarine Blue paint out from under my nails for the third time today. And perhaps my brilliant idea about a good blog post will come back to me. (And this time I'll write it down so I don't lose it. :P)

Year 3... And Go!

Okay, dear readers, I have been incredibly lax in updating this blog for a variety of reasons, too numerous to get into and all sounding like a poor excuse for being lazy. But I've got about 20 minutes before I need to start work in the scene shop today and so I'm here, with not much of a plan but the need to keep the promise to myself to write every week.

As the title suggests, year three of my graduate school career is underway. This is the last year in my MFA and I'm incredibly excited. It has been a bit of a stressful few days, getting the six first year MFA designers situated (and hearing about the crazy class schedule debacle) but the dust is starting to settle and I think it's going to be a great year.

Oklahoma! is off to a fast-paced start (we hit tech in 4.5 weeks!) and The Waiting Room is getting going as well. But not just the shows, I have, miraculously, only ended up with one structured class and an independent study of my own devising. It's like a year made-to-order. And you know what that means...

In 9 months, the real world awaits. Yesterday, at a gathering of returning and new graduate students, the question of what comes next, of course, came up. I feel like I answer this question at least once a day. But the bottom line is that the answer remains the same (and, predictably, vague): I'm going where the job is. The idea of going to New York never appealed to me and there are only to cities I would move to just to move and figure something out (Chicago and Seattle), but in this economy and with my temperament, I'm not one to just hope that I land on my feet by heading to some burgeoning theatre community. So right now, I don't have an answer, but I am looking forward to the adventure that not knowing provides. And, really, I don't expect I'll have much an answer until sometime next spring. Life has a funny way of working out but it often takes a while before things become clear. So until then, I'm going to go paint some more clouds and start working on No Exit, just because.

A Dedication

Once, when I was about 7 years old, I attended a Special Olympics event in Chico, CA. I was there because of my sister Kristin, a sister not many of you have ever heard me talk about. Kristin, 5 years my junior, was born with Down's Syndrome. And like all people who have an extra 21st chromosome, she is a happy, fun little girl. The sad fact is that I haven't seen Kristin in over 15 years as she lives with her father somewhere in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Yet, every time I pass a person with Down's, my heart breaks a little for this sister who I hardly know.

At the pool here in Carrboro, watching the athletes register for their events for a Special Olympics day that my other sister, Morrow, is volunteering for, I was overwhelmed. I had intended to help the volunteer staff at the event in any way that I could, but was unneeded, and rather than sit in the muggy heat for 3 hours with a sense of dread and unease, I opted to come home instead. And now I sit here and I feel at a loss to the purpose of what I do.

When I was younger I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to change the lives of students. I envisioned myself standing before a classroom while rapt students looked up at me, absorbing information and asking questions of their world. While I realize that was a wholly unrealistic ideal of teaching, the fact of the matter was that I imagined I would be serving my community directly through teaching.

Instead, I fill my time by trying to create spectacle and entertainment for a small sliver of a community. Today I must resume work on Oklahoma!, a show that I would argue is pure drivel because it shows us nothing new in our world today. It does not make you think, it does not challenge your opinions, it just entertains and amuses you. And it was picked for the UNCG season specifically because it would be a money-maker, drawing in the "blue-hairs" and families that long for the Golden Age of Broadway to return. (Granted, I feel that the director for this piece is trying [and succeeding] in making this production relevant and challenging. But the bottom line is that Rogers and Hammerstein themselves admitted that they conceived the musical to hearken back to a brighter, happier time as America was facing the brutal reality of WWII.)

It is disheartening that in almost a decade spent in this profession of theatre that I find myself struggling to find meaning and purpose in an art form that has been the cradle of dissent and change in past times. One of my most important heroes is Hallie Flanagan who helped create the short-lived Federal Theatre Project. Her belief that theatre (and art) could be driven by the masses as well as be thought-provoking and dangerous ("Theatre, when it is good, is always dangerous," she said), is one of the things that has driven me further in my endeavor to work in this field. But the sad fact is that not many people are doing dangerous stuff anymore. True, there are companies that are working outside of the capitalistic, commercial frame-work, but they truly are the "not-for-profit" sector. Furthermore, they are often preaching to the choir because like-minded individuals are generally the people who make up their audiences.

So, what does this all mean? What, if anything, can I change in order to feel like I'm doing more than catering to the jaded and numb audiences? I'm not sure. Many people talk about the death of theatre in terms of the decline of audience numbers and the rise in the mean age of said declining(/dying) audience members. I feel like the death of theatre is in it becoming deadly. If, in an educational theatre, where the students are allowed to try something without the threat of eminent doom if they fail, the season selection committee can't push the envelope a little with their big-budget musical, what hope is there for theatre that can't afford to fail? I don't have the answer, but I do hope that as a theatre artist that I don't forget that I want to do what Hallie says: create the type of good theatre that is dangerous. Meanwhile, as I work on shows that feel useless and un-challenging like Oklahoma! I will dedicate my work to Kristin, whose simple, innocent outlook on life is enough for me to know there is a time and place for entertainment for entertainment's sake. I will design in the vein of the Golden Age of Broadway, pull out the stops in spectacle, and create an iconic surrey-with-the-fringe-on-top because I know that if Kristin where in the audience her joy and excitement would be all that matters in the world.

Oklahoma! ... continued

Well, Thursday was the big design presentation, so the model got done. I knew going into it that things were going to change, so not so much with the final. I've already had a meeting with the director about new ideas that he's excited about, so I'm working towards some overhauls for the model for this Wednesday. But in the meantime I thought I'd share pictures of where I landed, with commentary of course.

This is the show drop (position is changing) and it will not just be white (ha ha).

Laurie's House. Not much has or will change with what you're seeing here.

Judd's Cabin. There are some adjustments being made to this, in part because I don't really have all of the info about Aycock, but it's not going to change much from this.

The grove in the ballet. Nothing changing at the top with the romantic scene while all is well and good.

The Dance Hall/Nightmare. We spent a lot of time talking about this moment in the meeting. On my end, I think I've come up with a way to shift even further out of "Oklahoma" with some Mackintosh School of Art Nouveau motifs and changing the location of those light fixtures. Expect to see more about this later.

Skidmore Ranch. This is the part that is changing most drastically. And this part of the model sucks. But whatever. Ultimately, the platform is going away and we'll be creating a ring for dancing with hay bales and what not (lights are staying the same). I didn't consider this idea before because of In-One scene issues, but we resolved that during the meeting and now Act II is SOOOOOOO much better.

Skidmore Ranch backporch. Also changing, now that there is no platform and the in-one scene has changed. And Prior (who is my little dude there) is falling over. :P

Laurie's House. Then back to Laurie's house. Some cool choreography/staging ideas have come from the director on this, but mums the word in case magic cannot happen.

So yes, changes are in the air (which means another update about this is likely next weekend). Have I mentioned that this is my thesis work? So documenting it via my blog helps keep things fresh for when I have to write my paper or whatever.

Oklahoma!

So, my exciting blog post? A photo essay of my work on Oklahoma. I was hoping I'd have gotten further with the white model today, but sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way. For now I'll just share the drawings that go with what's done in the white model... which leaves out a few key scenes, but I promise to update you as I get further in the process.

Step 1. A Model Box of the Space. In this case, the roadhouse on campus Aycock Auditorium. I've included the wing space, or rather lack there of, so that's why it is so long. There are only two pockets of floor space SL and SR that we can use, much of what you're seeing is housing an orchestra shell and an "office." Bollucks.

Step 2: Laury's House. As you can see from the original drawing, the house has switched sides of the stage, because of that blasted lack of wing space. There is some interesting ideas up my sleeve about how the show will begin with "Oh What A Beautiful Morning" but I'm not telling yet....

Step 3. The Dream Ballet (yes, I know I'm missing Judd's cabin, but bear with me). This hard-framed flat of trees will go into silhouette in the wedding portion of the dance and then silhouetted gas lanterns will fly in above the silhouetted dance hall girls when Judd's fantasy takes over. A little difficult to show that second part in the white model, hence my inclusion of my hastily drawn elevation.

Step 4. The Dance at the Skidmore Rance at the top of Act II. I've not gotten it done, but you can see that I'm working on creating a platform with posts that have lights strung between them. The second picture is the close up of the beads and thread I'm using for the 1/4" scale. It's stuff like this that makes modeling fun.

So obviously there is still work to be done (floor treatment, the house for the back porch scene at the Skidmore Ranch, Judd's Cabin). But I think I've made progress. I am feeling infinitely better about this design than I was about a week ago, and I think the director is feeling good, too. We have a final design presentation on Thursday, which means I'll be presenting my work to my faculty (most of whom have at least seen the drawings), the director's faculty (he's an MFA Directing student and this is his thesis), and some of the staff (Technical Director, Lighting/Sound Supervisor, Costume Shop Supervisors/Cutter-Drapers). So expect more updates soon!

The Trouble with Summer

Ack! I missed posting last week. My apologies. It might have something to do with the fact that though I am out of school, my life is a whirlwind of too much to do.

This summer I am in the process of realizing 3.5 designs and working on another. I was hired to design costumes and scenery for two upcoming shows in the Cabaret space at Triad Stage in conjunction with UNCG's Theatre 232. The two pieces, The Actor's Nightmare and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All to You are performing back to back, which is why the design is 3.5 rather than 4. The set is essentially the same for both, with a few details changed. But the costumes, boy-howdy (as my mother likes to say). They are proving difficult and a pain.

But really, what overwhelms me is having to wear two different hats at the same time. I don't know how those European designers do it. Well, I have my theories (assistants!) but even still, my brain seems so jumbled with all of my lists of things to do. And then, as I said, I'm in design meetings for a completely different production, Oklahoma!, which will open UNCG's 2010-11 season. The professors here have said on a number of occasions how overlapping designs is not out of the ordinary, but I wonder about this process.

I'd also like to state for the record that summer work is bullocks. I do not understand why the theatre shuts down for the summer, and we all scramble for summer-stock jobs where we get paid infinitely too little for a jam-packed, insanity-inducing process that spans 2 months. Was this kind of season created to follow the agrarian calendar (like schools) or to give us time off because we're ever so burnt out (sarcasm)? I commend theatres like Triad Stage, mentioned above, that still close down in the summer, but not for as long. Currently they are wrapping up their season with a new work by artistic director Preston Lane called Providence Gap. It wraps up July 4th weekend and then rehearsals, etc restart in August for The Glass Menagerie. Somehow that makes a little more sense to me than taking May to August off. But to each theatre their own.

Nevertheless, my summer job is plugging away and Oklahoma! is shaping up nicely (perhaps scans of my designs will hop up here as soon as they are [mostly] finalized). Personally, though I like time off in the summer, I'd rather a little more stability in the job market and a little less stress about getting to my September pay check.