Thursday, May 05, 2005
The Demolition Downtown by Tennessee Williams 
And now for something completely different! The kind of painting that I can do is not always in demand. Every couple of years we do a period piece that calls for trompe l'oeil effects or the kind of painterly work I posted yesterday. Much more current are sets of this type.
The Internationalist went on in February of this year. The look was very cool, very international chic in surfaces and furniture. I found the chairs in a Design Within Reach catalog and they were just affordable, but I wanted them and they looked great on stage. The cafe table in the photo and all the office desks were made in our shop and I spray lacquered the pedestals myself. The tops were solid one inch clear acrylic with rounded edges. For the wall panels I found an opalescent fabric that could go gold or silver depending on the angle from which you looked at it, and the color was changable by back lighting with color filters. In the photo here, patterns are sprayed across the back. The panels were suspended from overhead tracks and could be reconfigured into large or small spaces quickly and easily.
The Demolition Downtown is normally a thirty-five minute one act that takes place in the living room of an upper middle class home. It played in the last two weeks of April. The director is very media-conscious so there were live video feeds to monitors placed across the front of the stage. He also likes the audience to be held at arm's reach away from the action, so I designed a solid plexiglas wall between the actors and the audience--all dialog was picked up by microphones and heard through speakers. This is a post-modern kind of design--many sets these days look like museum installations rather than traditional scenery. He also expanded the action and dialog considerably and created a production that not only presented the text but made a running commentary on it as well.
Next week is the last week of classes, then there's an exam week. I got my grass cut last night--eight inches to a foot may be exciting in some contexts but not for a lawn.
And now for something completely different! The kind of painting that I can do is not always in demand. Every couple of years we do a period piece that calls for trompe l'oeil effects or the kind of painterly work I posted yesterday. Much more current are sets of this type.
The Internationalist went on in February of this year. The look was very cool, very international chic in surfaces and furniture. I found the chairs in a Design Within Reach catalog and they were just affordable, but I wanted them and they looked great on stage. The cafe table in the photo and all the office desks were made in our shop and I spray lacquered the pedestals myself. The tops were solid one inch clear acrylic with rounded edges. For the wall panels I found an opalescent fabric that could go gold or silver depending on the angle from which you looked at it, and the color was changable by back lighting with color filters. In the photo here, patterns are sprayed across the back. The panels were suspended from overhead tracks and could be reconfigured into large or small spaces quickly and easily.
The Demolition Downtown is normally a thirty-five minute one act that takes place in the living room of an upper middle class home. It played in the last two weeks of April. The director is very media-conscious so there were live video feeds to monitors placed across the front of the stage. He also likes the audience to be held at arm's reach away from the action, so I designed a solid plexiglas wall between the actors and the audience--all dialog was picked up by microphones and heard through speakers. This is a post-modern kind of design--many sets these days look like museum installations rather than traditional scenery. He also expanded the action and dialog considerably and created a production that not only presented the text but made a running commentary on it as well.
Next week is the last week of classes, then there's an exam week. I got my grass cut last night--eight inches to a foot may be exciting in some contexts but not for a lawn.
