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Life’s A Stage

jagwah | Posted in General Discussion on September 13, 2003 05:11am

Thought I’d share a little of my stagecraft theatre work. The current play being built is The Real Inspector Hound. It’s a comedic farce set in an old manor during the 60’s.

The great thing  with doors built here you don’t get call backs about sticking a month later. There’s no foundation issues or tree root compaction problems. And I don’t have to deal with city inspections or rain outs.

And when the plays over you tear it up. This I have found is very cathartic. We need in real life to at least once build something the best we can then destroy it, immortalizing the work in your soul.

The bad news is the students are supposed to do all the work, they usually don’t. Being a first year stagecraft class the best I try to teach them is safety, safety, safety then some theatre jargon.

Mostly they manage to fill their lab hours with painting and laughing at my dumb jokes. I gotta captive audience.

So here is a couple photos of the door unit from the inside. It is supposed to be manor like, so says the director. I’m going to place a silhouette of a wolf in the center. along the header above the door is three latin words that say Stinky Smelly Dumb, a family motto I came up with. I wonder if anyone in the audience can read Latin? My little joke I haven’t shared with anyone.

There is also a couch I started, an old fancy.

Does anyone else do any theatre, got photos?

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  1. Philter | Sep 13, 2003 05:48pm | #1

    I did theatre/stagecraft in 1977 high school and then in our own company for 6 years after that, the most fun I had was doing all sets and construction for  Barefoot in the Park,  two floors, stairs, verandah.Sadly, no pic.s exist from those days

    If it is to be.... 'twil be done by me.
    1. User avater
      jagwah | Sep 13, 2003 06:06pm | #2

      One of the interesting things for me is until three years ago I never did any theatre work. A friend of my wife was desperate for someone to build the set for  The Odd Couple, his master carpenter had quit. It looked like fun and besides it was just basically a 12' wall with a few doors. After finishing it I swore I wouldn't do it again, to many premidonas. But three months later he called and offered a full time position at the Junior college.

      Long story short, low pay but I did the math and with paid health insurance,47 paid holidays and 2 weeks vacations a year it came close.

      Any carpenters out there looking for some fun work... check out your local theatre group.

      Life, it truly is the path not the destination.

      As a master carpenter/cabinetmaker I'm no where near my home, but that's ok.

      Edited 9/13/2003 11:07:57 AM ET by JAGWAH

  2. Phat | Sep 13, 2003 06:23pm | #3

    Short answer - yes.

    I've been meaning to post some of the stuff I've / we've done over the last few years. My fancy title is Master Scenic Carpenter for Seattle Opera. As I should be on the shop floor right now I've attached just two pics.

    The stair unit was from Parsifal. It is about 47 feet tall, and descended in an elevator at about 4 feet per/second. Installed in the elevator the entire unit was about 77 feet tall.

    The cornice molding is from the current project, Mourning Becomes Electra. It is a build up of cast egg and dart, hot-wire cut polystyrene, and poplar plywood - weight is always an issue.

    And with all our scenery, it all has to disassemble, pack into semi's and reassemble quickly on-stage.

    Ken

    Lucrum En Confusione Est



    Edited 9/13/2003 2:03:51 PM ET by Spudwise

    1. User avater
      jagwah | Sep 13, 2003 06:56pm | #4

      APPLAUSE!!

      I bow to your fantastic work. YOU'VE GOT A HOT WIRE CUTTER! Wow! Marvelous work.

      As you can tell we're just at the beginnings of stagecraft with teaching the students. To bad your so far away I would love to send you some grunts.

      Locally we have some great theatre houses but they do little of their own work it seems.

      Man. I really love the molding shot. Top notch thanks again for the shots.

      Bob

      1. Phat | Sep 13, 2003 08:18pm | #5

        Thanks,

        I've got a great crew.

        The hot-wire stuff we use to do in-house, but for a while now we use a vendor who's usual clients do the exterior moldings for the high-rises - the stuff that's later shot with Dryvit.

        Painted:

        The scenic artists have worked up the molding to the designer’s renderings. Many layers of color washes, spatter, with highlights and shadows.

        Walls:

        It’s kinda hard to see in this shot, but the top of the wall is the black painted steel frame-work above the 1/8” luan covered portion. The very top is painted white, as it also becomes the top profile of the cornice moulding. The walls are about 21 feet tall, with the doors at about 13 feet.

        Latch:

        As I mentioned in my first post, all our stuff has to break-down to get to the theatre. In fact, this show is a co-production with New York City Opera. So after we do it, they get it. Due to their tight production schedule, this show has to assemble in 8 hours.    

        To help that, we try to reduce the amount of loose hardware (nuts and bolts) by using over-center latches, welded alignment pins, and such. Sometimes we do have to use bolts – as you might be able to see towards the top of the frame (the silver bits) but we try to standardize to one size.

         

        Gotta go – it’s coffee!!!

         

        Ken

        Lucrum En Confusione Est

        Edited 9/13/2003 2:03:29 PM ET by Spudwise

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