On Saturday morning, my trusted crew met at the scenic shop at 8 AM and loaded the set into a 5' x 10' trailer, and the back end of two hatchback vehicles. We left the scenic shop at 8:40 for the trip across the Mississippi River and to the theater. The group arrived at 9:15 and we began pulling in only the things we needed to get started, knowing that there would be young able-bodied teenagers to carry the bulk of it into the theater.
Patrick, Melanie and I set about digging existing platforms out of the New Line storage room while two other carpenters, Larry and Glenn began putting legs on platforms. Everything on this set anchors on the stair and platforms that make the upstairs. We had to get that piece in place and right before we could go on.
My wife, Kathleen arrived about 10:15 with reinforcements and they proceeded to empty the trailer into the theater while we finished platform legs. We then righted the platforms and began probably the most difficult part of the day...getting the set positioned in the right place on stage.
Normally, I will use AutoCAD to give me a few dimensions to place key elements and this makes laying out on stage an easy task. Also, I am used to having access to the theater for a longer period and constructing in place. So I can tape the floor and the cast can move around the tape marks for a rehearsal or so before hard elements start going up. That way I can make adjustments before we build. Didn't have that luxury here.
Also, I have mentioned before that this stage is a little odd to work on because it is a pie wedge, not rectangular...so what do I dimension off of. Instead, we guessed. Based on my plan drawing, the stair ended at center.
So, we chose to work off of the stair. Turns out that the stage is actually about 5 feet wider than I thought, so we pushed the set upstage about four feet. With the pie wedge shape, the wings tightened in on the set. Also gave Scott an additional 4' of playing area out front and this turned out to be beneficial.
It took us an hour of jockeying 6' tall platforms into place to finally decide where it was going to finally go. Once I gave the OK, platforms were tied together in minutes and we were climbing on the levels.
Walls went up fast. Turns out that, all of the pieces that I designed and Patrick, Melanie and I built in the shop, fit together nicely. We modified NOTHING in the field. Walls were braced, doors were set, and plumbed to operate smoothly.
I assigned one crew to frame the opening for the scrim and a second one to construct maskings outside the front door and window. Larry put safety railings on the bedroom platform upstairs.
Mike Dowdy and Zak Farmer came a little after noon and donned paint brushes and blacked out structure and maskings.
Scott came about 2 to see how we were doing, and by 2:30 we were turning lights out and locking up for the day as black paint dried.
Sunday morning, Patrick, his daughter Lydia, Melanie and I loaded our vehicles with as much furniture and props as we could fit and returned about 10 AM to finish things up. We pre-cut the pieces to make the upstairs roof and Lydia and Melanie painted those on the floor while Patrick and I started stretching scrim. That is always a challenge...and here I designed a REAL challenge. A sloping top wall with a corner in the middle...yea, that took some finessing to get it right.
We applied the "crown molding" (really just 1x4's painted trim color) to create a strong, clean top line to the walls. Then we tackled putting the roof up. This was not an easy feat. Melanie was on the ladder 15' in the air, wrestling her end of a 10' 2x8 rafter, while Patrick and I screwed it to the flats that formed the upstairs walls. Melanie then wired it to the lighting grid pipes...three rafters hung, then a few planks on top and the ceiling was done.
We made the boards to "board up" the door and window, hung curtains on the window, adjusted masking legs and put furnishings in place.
We pulled out around 3:30 with the set ready to rehearse on. There are still a few things to do...paint the floor, some additional black fabric maskings behind doors, etc. And then, of course, at the end of the week Gary and I will splash it with a little magic. We need to make it look "lived in". After all, a little old lady lives here...
This was my first set for this stage and I made a couple of mistakes and learned a LOT!
Melanie and I attended rehearsal last night for the cast's first time working on set to see if there were any problems and see their reaction to our work. Two of the doors work just fine with the blocking. The upstairs door, however, should have swung the other way or better yet, swung upstage, into the "bedroom". It gets in the way in an already tight space. Another thing that I learned is that this is a very tall space with steep seating that rises above the stage so that the audience is looking down a bit. This is a condition that I have not designed for before. My design called for only 8' walls on the living room and kitchen. So, once you get up a few rows, you start seeing the top of the walls and over the walls. This means that we had to clean up the tops of the flats and paint them black. It also means that you see the top of the masking flats extending behind the front door and window. Right now, a work light shines straight down on it and it makes a strong line upstage. I am hoping that when I get stage lights on, I can avoid hitting the top edge and make it less noticeable.
Hopefully these things are not considered too bad and I get asked back again to do another show... Maybe I am being critical, and I need to be a little critical of what I do to make sure I improve. Gary says that the average person probably won't even notice. (I hope...)
Next weekend...LIGHTS!
More pictures later (sorry for the quality of these but it was the best that I could do with my iPhone and the house and work lights aren't the best for taking photos of a set.)
Rob
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