A SCENIC DESIGN FOR 110 IN THE SHADE

by

LELAND JUDSON VERMILLION, B.A.

A THESIS

IN

THEATRE ARTS

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of die Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF FINE ARTS

Approved

Dean of the Graduate School

August, 2002

Copyright 2002, Leland Judson Vermillion

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Texas Tech University Department of Theatre and Dance

for the help and support of everyone there. I especially wish to thank all those in the

Scene Shop; most of all the shop staff, without whom I would not have been able to

complete this project. A special acknowledgment is due my advisor, my mentor, my

friend, the Head of Design, and incoming Chair of the Department, Frederick Christoffel

My deepest thanks and love go to my wife, Louise Vermillion, without whom I

would have never had the courage to go back to school. For her total belief in me, for he

endless patience with my stiange career choice, for her love and for everything that she

has done for me, I dedicate this thesis to her.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

UST OF FIGURES i

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION

n. RESEARCH AND CONCEPTS

m. DEVELOPMENT OF THE DESIGN 1

rV. PRODUCTION AND IMPLEMENTATION 2

V. EVALUATION 3

BIBLIOGRAPHY 3

APPENDIX

A. SCENIC DESIGN: DRAFTING PLATES 3

B. PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS 4

ill

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Mainstieet Sketch U

2. Portal Sketch 1<

3. Slaton Depot Pictiire 2(

4. Depot Sketch 2

5. Pavilion Sketch 2t

6. Starbuck's Wagon Sketch 2(

7. Painter's Elevation, Stage Right Front 2i

8. Painter's Elevation, Stage Left Front 3i

9. Ground Plan 3J

10. Hanging Section 3'

11. Portal Constmction Drawings 4

12. Front and Third Portal Elevations 4

13. First and Second Portal Elevations 4!

14. File's Office Constmction Drawings 4

15. Gazebo and Windmill Constmction Drawings 4

16. Train Depot Photo 4

17. Ground Row Photo 4

18. Picnic Table, Windmill, and Bandstand Photo 4

19. File's Office Photo 4

20. Picnic Photo 5

iv

21. Starbuck's Wagon Photo 51

22. Pavilion Photo 52

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Department of Theati-e and Dance at Texas Tech University allows for a

production thesis in Scenic Design. The purpose of this diesis is to demonstiate both a

practical and a theoretical knowledge of theati-e and the art of scenic design. This policy

is based on the requirements of The National Association of Schools of Theati-e for a

Masters of Fine Arts degree as listed in their handbook that states:

The M.F. A candidate should be required to present a final project showing Professional competence in a specific area of work. While such presentation may be supported by a written document, such a document (except for programs in playwriting) in itself may not be considered the final project. (National Association of Schools of Theatre 75)

This thesis will serve as a report of the Texas Tech University's production of IK

in the Shade, and will serve as a record of the development and execution of the scenic

design of that production. Although the design process is highly dependent upon

research, this thesis should not be viewed as a demonstration of scholarly research skills

as is required by some programs, it should rather be seen as a record of the design

process for this production.

The Texas Tech University production of 110 in the Shade was presented on the

Mainstage of the Charles E. Maedgen Jr. Theatre on October twelfth through the twenty-

first of Two Thousand and Two. The Production Staff was as follows: Director—Jim

Bush, Musical Director-Lee A. Steward, Scenic Designer-Judd Vermillion, Lighting

Designer—Frederik B. Christoffel, Costume Designer—Melissa Merz and

Choreographer-Galina Panova.

The second chapter will cover the background of the play, the playwright, the

composer and the lyricist, and the basic design concepts and origins. Chapter HI will

deal with the process of the development of the scenic design. Production and

implementation of the design will comprise the fourth chapter, and the fifth will consist

of evaluation.

CHAPTER II

RESEARCH AND CONCEPTS

The story of IIP in the Shade begins witii the author, N. Richard Nash, whose

play. The Rainmaker, served as the source. Although the play is set in the West, Mr.

Nash was from the East; the south side of Philadelphia. He worked for a time as a

$10-a-bout boxer, but after deciding that bloody noses were not for him, he went to

college to study Philosophy and English (CNN.com 1).

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1934, Nash turned to

playwriting, and his first play. Parting at Imsdorf won the Maxwell Anderson Verse

Drama Award in 1940. He had worked on The Rainmaker for fifteen years, ironically

first as the libretto of a musical, then as a full-length play, and finally as the outiine of a

novel (Corbin & Balf 93). Nash said that he wrote the play as a tribute to his older sister

Mae, whom he credited with curing him of stuttering when he was a child by being an

endlessly patient and attentive listener. The romantic comedy finally foimd an audience

as a television drama, and from there the play was moved to Broadway in 1954, where it

was a hit. It then was made into a movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster

in 1956. The play finally came fiill circle when the producer, David Merrick, optioned

the musical rights and asked the author to adapt the play for him.

The original script for The Rainmaker was set in an ambiguous western state that

is never identified, but seems to be in the Midwest, possibly Kansas. The character, Jim,

fries to tune in Kansas City on his little crystal radio, but all he can ever get is static. By

the time that the movie was made, the location had been changed to Texas.

Nash was not a westerner, but he and Merrick recmited two young Texans to

create the music: Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. Jones and Schmidt had worked as a

team since attending the University of Texas in Austin, where they had joined forces on a

musical revue. The two continued their collaboration by cortespondence while serving in

the armed forces during the Korean conflict. After completing their enlistinent they

moved to New York, where Schmidt was hired as an artist for NBC w*ile Jones taught

and tried to establish himself as a director. They wrote material for several revues in the

city before they were asked by their former University of Texas collaborator. Word

Baker, to put together a one act-musical from Edmimd Rostand's play Le Romanesques.

They had been working for some time on adapting the play but had little success, so they

threw out everything but the song Try to Remember and started over. The piece became

The Fantasticks. and atfracted immediate attention. It was brought to the Sullivan Stieet

Theatre by producer Lore Noto where it stayed for almost forty two years, becoming the

longest rutming theatrical production in American Theatre History (Rosati 3).

Fresh from their success with The Fantasticks. Schmidt and Jones began work on

IIP in the Shade, and they wrote one himdred and fourteen songs before finally settling

on sixteen for the show. The original title was Rainbow, but at some time during the

months of pre-production it was changed to One Hundred and Ten in the Shade.

Eventually, the shortened title, 110 in the Shade, was adopted (Rosenfield 1).

After out of town performances in Boston and Philadelphia, 110 in the Shade

opened on Broadway on October 24, 1963, at the Broadhurst Theatre. The reviews were

generally good and the show ran for 330 performances, but, unfortunately, it was up

against some stiff competition that year from shows such as Funny Girl and Hello Dollv.

Broadway audiences had become accustomed to big, brassy, blockbuster musicals and

this was small, sweet natured and somewhat hokey, consequently the show never

developed a large followdng. Slightly more than seven months after opening, the leading

lady, Inga Swenson, slipped in a puddle of water during the curtain call and broke her

ankle. Her absence must certainly have contributed to the show's closing.

The re-setting of the play in Texas was a fortimate happenstance considering the

background of the composer and lyricist. They were both raised in nu-al Texas during the

Great Depression, the time frame of the piece. They both understood on a very personal

level how completely dependent upon the weather the farmer and the rancher are. Too

much rain could be just as bad as too little. The wind could cool yoiu- brow or blow

everything you have built into a million pieces. It was an unforgiving place, particularly

at that time in history.

In the tiansition from stage play to musical, the story remained the same, but a

great number of details were changed. In the play, there are only three locations: the

ranch house, the tack room and the sheriffs office. In 110 in the Shade, six locations are

required: the main street of Three Point, the railroad depot, the sheriffs office, a picnic

area near the bandstand, the Rainwagon, and the pavilion. These location changes were

designed to open up the play and give it a larger scope. The authors felt that as long as

the story took place in the confines of the ranch, there would be no easy way to intioduce

additional characters; The Rainmaker has only seven characters (Jones 114). This was to

be a large Broadway musical, so there needed to be larger and expanded settings and

more characters. It is difficult to play such a small scale story in a big Broadway house

to audiences who are used to seeing Oklahoma Funny Giri. and South Pacific.

It is interesting that David Merrick chose Jones and Schmidt to write the score for

this production. Until that point, the only success that they enjoyed was from a very small

and impretentious show. I think that it shows a certain brashness on their part to try and

expand the play in the manner that they did. It is telling that a newer version, which

reduces the number of townsfolk and utilizes smaller orchestiation, is gaining popularity.

The Rainmaker succeeds in large part because of the audience's empathy with Lizzie. In

110 in the Shade, the audience is separated from the story by the settings and the number

of people who have no real relationship to the advancement of the plot. The inflated cast

is there just to add vocal support during production numbers.

Snookie Updegraff is the only person involved with any of the main characters

who appears in the musical version and not in the play. She remains offstage in the play,

an unseen character on the phone who is discussed and whose values are debated. In the

musical, Snookie makes an appearance, and we now have a face to put to the name, but

outside of a duet with Jimmy on Little Red Hat, she has few tines and minimal stage

time.

It is curious that while they were trying to beef up the cast, they cut one of the

characters from the play. The sheriff in The Rainmaker serves as File's conscience and

father figure and it is not clear why he was deemed unnecessary for the musical. File's

scene with the sheriff serves to make him more real to the audience and gives us more

time to develop an understanding of his character. In 110 in the Shade. File has precious

little time to develop any empathy from the audience, and only one short scene to lay the

foundation for future romance and Lizzie's eventual choice of him over Starbuck.

As would be expected when utilizing the original author to do the adaptation, the

basic story remains imchanged. Large portions of dialogue are lifted verbatim and

several of the songs take their cues from the original script, utilizing phrases and images

sfraight from the source. Lizzie's song Old Maid, which ends the first act, is a cry of

despair whose lyrics are simply expanded versions of the lines Lizzie plaintively laments

in the play. Tom Jones, in his book Making Musical, talks about the script as source

material for lyrics and how he uses them to advance the plot or expand on a character.

Look in the book. Possibly imderline some line or image in the text, or put an asterisk beside it. Look for the actual titie of the song that might fit into this particular spot. Look for the phrase or line or word which sums up the idea and is captured in a speech or possibly even in stage direction. (154)

The songs Little Red Hat Melisande and several otiiers are simply expansions of

speeches made in The Rainmaker.

Jones lists three things that have to be considered and dealt witii when attempting

to write a musical, and I think that these same three things figure strongly in the choices

made by a scenic designer. According to Jones, you must consider the premise, the plot

and the concept (101). His defiiutions of these terms are somewhat vague, but I will try

to explain them. The premise is the basic idea imderlying the story. What is it about, not

what happens, but what point is being made by the story. In a fable, it would be the

moral at the end of the story, but most plays today are more complex and enigmatic than

fables. The plot is the simplest to explain, it is the sequence of events; what happens and

in what order and at what time. Concept is also difficult to pin down, but it is the

framework within which the story is presented. The concept of Cats is humans playing

felines on a giant representation of a junk yard. The concept could be thought of as a

metaphor that encompasses the entire production.

In 110 in the Shade. Jones states that the premise of the play was very clear,

". . . dreams and romanticism are necessary to bring fulfillment into our lives" (108). In

my own readings of the play I had come up with a similar notion about its concept. One

needs his dreams, be they large or small, in order to give one's life meaning. Many times

it has been helpfid to me to address the basic theme of a play before I begin to design a

setting for it. For me, understanding the theme or premise led me to the decision to use

bright colors in certain areas as a contrast to the stark, dry landscape of West Texas,

which would be represented by the majority of the set.

The plot required analysis simply from a logistical standpoint. I needed to know

when scenery would change, what locations would be necessary and how these scenic

changes would be accomplished. In a large stage musical, the movements of the scenery

is like choreography, in that it must be planned and executed cortectly or you mn the risk

of collisions and possible injury to the stagehands or actors.

The concept that Schmidt and Jones devised was a division of the show into two

parts of the same day. It would open in early morning on the stieet of the town, and

would build to the end of the first act, like the building of the heat through a summer day.

Act I would end at sunset with Lizzie singing Old Maid in front of a flaming red sky

during the very hottest and most intolerable part of the day. Act II would take place at

rught, when things begin to cool off and the moonlight adds a more romantic look.

Lizzie nms to Starbuck and they make love in the night. Jimmy goes off with Snookie

and finds that he is smarter than he knew, and File finally comes to understand what he is

about to miss when Starbuck asks Lizzie to come with him.

I have mentioned that my imderstanding of the premise matched very closely to

that of the writers, and as far as the plot, it just is, and there is very little room for

discussion or interpretation other than exact locations of events. It is in concept where I

diverged from their ideas the most. My concept was that this is a very theatrical show, as

most musicals are, and I wanted to emphasize that theatricality. I was not interested in

going as far as the "alienation" concept of Brecht, but I also knew that there is no way in

a musical of this vintage to make people really suspend their disbelief Individual

elements of the set would maintain a level of detail and believability, but the setting as a

whole would not attempt to fool anybody.

I decided to use a series of portals to frame the stage in a classic "wing and drop"

style, although I did not use any real full backdrops in the tiaditional sense of the word,

but instead used flown profile flats and wagons for scene changes.

In attempting to decide the appropriate elements of West Texas to incorporate

into the set, I came to the conclusion that more visual information was necessary than

what was at my immediate disposal. A decided advantage I had is that living in West

Texas, there is a large stock of information to draw from, so I packed up my camera and

took a driving expedition to several towns in the area looking for characteristic biuldings,

grain elevators, frain stations, parks, landscapes and anything else that would suggest the

correct time and place. The towns do not change that much aroimd here except that

some of them die out, but the buildings and the land remain largely unchanged. As I

drove, I was once again stmck by the presence of the telephone pole as the tallest thing in

the landscape, and the perspective of the poles marching off into the distance that

accentuates the vastness of the panorama. In Idalou, I foimd several buildings on the

main sfreet that dated from the 1920s and grain elevators on the edge of town.

In Slaton, I hit pay dirt when I found the old train depot done in the Santa Fe

Railroad style. The depot is a large building that was one of the "Harvey Houses" on the

Santa Fe line. Harvey Houses were built all along the Santa Fe Railroad and served to

bring women out west as employees helping to "civilize" the West. This one served as a

restaurant until the demolition of the station, when it became the depot. I decided to use

the station as the prototype for my design because of its distinctive "Santa Fe" style which

10

seemed appropriate for the mood and place I wished to present. In a park downtown I

foimd a steam locomotive on display which I anticipated copying for a moment when

Lizzie's frain pulls into town. I also foimd a number of distinctive buildings which were

appropriate to a sfreet scene, and the park itself had a very ruce, small town feeling.

Continuing my journey, I traveled down U.S. 84 to Post, a town built by the cereal

magnate C. W. Post. The town is located just below the Caprock which marks the edge

of the Llano Estacado and is dominated by the mesa-like features of the surrounding

landscape. I found a number of wonderful stmctures in Post, including an Art Deco tiain

depot that was beautiful, although not what I was looking for. The setting of the town

was what impressed me and I determined to use that feature in my design. I fraveled

many miles through some very empty landscape and a few other scattered and isolated

towns just soaking in the vastness and trying to mentally roll back the clock seventy odd

years to get an idea of what it must have been like to live in this area back during the

1930s.

In Rosemary Ingham's book From Page to Stage, she describes her metaphor for

knowledge that I found very illuminating. She imagines that everything that she knows is

a bucket that is partially filled v^th water. When bom, a human has a certain amount of

genetic knowledge passed down from parents and ancestors, and that provides the

original level of water in his or her bucket. As additional information is learned by the

person, each new bit of knowledge is like a new drop in the bucket, which not only adds

to the overall volume of knowledge, but intermingles with every other drop of

11

information that is already there. In other words, each thing we leam affects all that we

already know in subtle or profound ways, new learning does not stay in discrete

packages, but is dispersed through everything we know (Ingham 9).

I felt, as I began to contemplate designing this show, that my bucket was not

nearly full enough. As I conducted research and looked at places and photographs, I

began to feel that my information reserves were begiiming to have enough raw material

to enable me to begin sketching and modeling the scenery that would have to be

constructed for our production. I especially found that my photo expedition had given

me more inspiration, more direction, more water in my bucket.

12

CHAPTER in

DEVELOPMENT OF THE DESIGN

When I fu-st leamed that I would be designing 110 in the Shade. I was unfamiliar

with the musical version of the story, but very familiar with tiie original play. I began to

fry to envision ways the story could be staged, seeing a farmhouse, a tack room and a

sheriffs office, and visualizing what I could make of them. As a designer, you fry not to

be influenced by previous versions, but, unfortimately, all of tiiat information is floating

around in your bucket of knowledge, influencing everything that you imagine.

I had a few preliminary discussions with the director before I had a copy of the

script, trying to get an idea of the direction that he wanted to take with the piece. Jim

Bush, the director, expressed a desire to have a windmill, and that he wanted some

element of water throughout the play. I had envisioned the expansive West Texas sky,

and discussed the possibility of renting a cyclorama to wrap aroimd behind the scenery,

giving as wide open a feeling as it is possible to achieve on an interior stage.

I acquired a copy of both the sound frack and the script and began to listen and

read. I was surprised to find the story now set in town and not at the ranch, though I was

pleased to see that much of the dialogue and action had remained intact. I immediately

began to reappraise my preliminary ideas about the design, wondering how I would

incorporate some of those early images into this changed story, and what device I would

use to show the audience the number of different locations which were now included.

13

I set up an informal meeting with the director to discuss concepts and problems in

order to get his "take" on this project. We found that we were in agreement over one of

the major problems with the show; how to keep the small scale of the story from being

subsumed by the size of the production. Most importantiy, we were concerned witii

retaining any feeling of intimacy with die audience when a yawning gulf of an orchestia

pit physically separates the actors from the patrons. We discussed several configurations

for the orchesfra pit, such as opening only one half of the available pit so that the actors

could come down close on at least one side. We examined the possibility of opening the

sides of the pit and leaving the center in place, and we also looked at having the

orchestra split between the alcoves on each side of the proscenium. We decided that it

would be problematic to split the orchesfra, so those possibilities were discarded, and Mr.

Bush expressed a wish to have a member of the orchesfra come out and interact v̂ ith the

characters on stage at the begirming of the second act.

Mr. Bush reemphasized his desire to have something water related in every scene.

Using the script, we determined that we would use a water tower in the first scene, and

we would try to have a windmill in the background in a number of the other scenes. He

would have the actors use hand props to provide suggestions of water in additional

scenes, such as using a bandana to wipe sweat off a brow, or having a bucket of water at

hand to quench a thirst.

We next decided to consider the locations in the script; how they would be

handled and how that would affect the flow of the show. The first scene takes place at the

14

frain station on the main street of Three Point, from there we move to File's office,

which is the only interior in the show. Lastly, we have a series of places around the

picnic grounds that appear and reappear, giving us a total of six different locations for the

musical. For tiie scenes at the picnic grounds, I proposed that as we moved from place to

place, we would incorporate smaller versions of the stmctiires which appear in the other

scenes in the background. For instance, we start near the bandstand, then the next scene

is at Starbuck's wagon. I hoped to be able to have a small version of the bandstand in the

background when we were at the wagon, and to include pieces from the otiier locations

as well. The idea was to have a very cinematic feeling, as if the camera were moving

from location to location and showing other parts of the picnic ground in its field of

view. Mr. Bush liked the idea, and I then went to work on some preliminary sketches.

In my initial experiments I was trying to retain the idea of using a fiill cyclorama

to porfray the vast Texas sky, but I knew that I needed some device to mask the sides of

the eye so that there would not be a jarring fransition from sky to curtain or prosceiuum

wall. My first inclination was to use flat representations of buildings rendered in one

point perspective extending out on each side of the proscenium and then projecting onto

the stage at about a sixty-degree angle to the front of the stage. The effect would be

somewhat like standing in the middle of the mainsfreet, looking off into the distance

where the prairie meets the town, as shown in the preliminary sketch (Figure 1).

15

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16

I liked tiie basic look of the street and the small town feeling that it evoked, but I

had some reservations as to how it would work for the picnic ground scenes.

Additionally, using the large wrap-around eye would severely limit access to the stage,

and I could see that I was going to need at least one or two large wagons which would

have frouble negotiating the restiicted enfrances. Mr. Bush let me know that he was

planning to cast a large number of people for townsfolk, and I would, in effect, reduce

the enfrance possibilities on the stage to two. As I began to build a sketch model of tiie

set, I found that this scenario was not working for me and that I would have to regroup.

Abandoning my first attempts, I decided to try a very old style of setting, the wing

and drop, utilizing a series of portals starting at the front of the stage which have

progressively smaller openings the further upstage they go. There would be a ground row

across the back of the stage behind the uppermost of the portals which would continue

the look of the scenery across the back of the stage. Additional scenic elements would

either be flown in from the fly loft, or rolled on from the wings. This arrangement allows

for several enfrances on each side of the stage for actors and scenery but does not work

with a large curved cyclorama.

My next challenge was to determine the look of the portals, and I wanted to use

something from the landscape to frame the stage. One of the fraditional ways to frame a

portal is to use trees and vegetation, but in West Texas, frees are much more the

exception than the rule, so that was not an option. In looking through my photos, I hit

upon the idea of using telephone poles on each side of the stage as the borders for the

17

portals, with the electrical wires strung across the top. I experimented with an idea

which used birds on the wires, grouped is such a way as to spell out the title of the show,

but that idea was met with almost universal disdain at an early production meeting. As I

built a sketch model incorporating the portals, I decided that I did not like the power lines

across the top, but instead, I wanted the look of utility poles in lines marching off into the

distance. I added two three-dimensional poles set out at the edge of the stage with wires

draping back to the poles on the first portal just in front of the prosceiuum. I would have

liked to continue draping the wires all the way to the most upstage portal, but there

would have been problems with fouled electrical battens and shadows from the high side

lights, so I left it to the audience's imagination to connect the rest (Figure 2).

The frain station was modeled almost exactly from the station in Slaton, but, since

it was mentioned directly in the script, I added a water tower, and incorporated feature

from front and back in a composite (Figure 3). I had originally discussed the possibility

of having a small profile of a steam locomotive that would slide out from behind tiie frain

station to indicate the arrival of Lizzie's fr-ain, and even envisioned using a small fogger to

provide smoke rising from the engine. As the process of constiiiction evolved, the frain

was cut because of the technical difficulties it would entail and the time that would have

to be devoted to making it work in any kind of believable fashion. The depot and tower

would be constmcted as a profile flat that would be flown in between the two most

upstage portals (Figure 4).

18

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19

Figure 3. Slaton Depot Picture

20

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21

As discussed before, the director and I stiniggled with the problem of where to put

the orchesfra, and finally decided to put it at the back of the stage, and use a high ground

row to mask the musicians from view. We then realized that we would need to provide

video monitors in two directions, one from the front of the house so that tiie conductor

could follow the action, and another from the conductor to the actors so that he could

give them visual cues. We determined to mount a camera in the Technical Director's

(TD's) office that would send a signal back to a monitor for the conductor, and we would

have another camera frained on the conductor, feeding signal to a monitor beside the

camera in the window of the TD's office. As the process continued, we realized that we

should place two more monitors at the front sides of the stage for the actors, so they

would not always have to be facing dead front to see their cues. I designed two small

towers which would stand behind flat painted foliage that would be attached to the

telephone poles along the edge of the side stages. The monitors would be masked by the

foliage and there would be enough room under the towers so that they would not block

access to the stage from the house.

File's office was problematic because it is the only interior location in the play,

and therefore it needed a very different look than the rest of the scenery. My initial

design for the office was a wagon four feet by ten feet which would have walls with a

door and also would carry File's desk. The wagon would roll out from the wings as the

frain depot flew out and provide a minimal break in the flow from the first scene to the

second. As the director began to look at that idea, he feh that there would just be too

22

little room on a wagon that small for four actors to sing and dance. I could not argue that

point and so I began to look for a new solution. I determined that I could use a set of

folding walls stabilized by a small wagon and a rolling desk which would expand when

unfolded to give a generous playing area. The frade off would be a break in the show as

the unit was rolled out and unfolded and the furniture distributed. The unit would have

to store in the stage right alcove because it could not negotiate the tight turns to come

from the wings, but, consequently, it filled the alcove almost completely and denied

access from that quarter.

Scene three takes place at the picnic area near the bandstand and since there are a

great number of townspeople in the scene, I wanted to keep the scenery fairly simple.

There would be two picnic tables of the style that I remember from my youtii,

incorporating the seating into the framework so tiiat they would move as a unit. The

bandstand would be a wagon about six by twelve feet with a frame and roof above, built

in a forced perspective to make it appear larger. Additionally, the windmill would make

its first appearance and be constructed in an old style with a wooden denick as tall as

would be practical given the height of the portals.

Early on we discussed tiie problem of tiie rainstorm which ends the show. On

Broadway they drenched the stage with man-made rain, but there was no way, given our

budget and time frame, that we could accomplish that feat. It would not be too difficult to

run a series of pipes with sprinkler heads over the stage, the problem is in what to do with

the water when it gets to the stage, and what happens to the costiimes and the scenery

23

when tiiey are subjected to that kind of environment. We needed a way to indicate the

presence of a storm without the water. Jim's suggestion was to have the windmill

motorized and have tt begin to spin, indicating the wind has risen as a prelude to the

storm, and to end the show before the rain actually hit. This seemed to be tiie most

workable solution, and fit in with the somewhat presentational direction that the design

was taking.

The pavilion, which is the setting for the beginiung of Act H, is, in the script, a

very ambiguous place. There is no description in the play or the stage directions, so there

was little to indicate what the authors had in mind other than its titie. Dipping deep into

my bucket of knowledge, I thought of the large, open air stmctures that were used for

worship services at the Baptist camps where I lived as a child. One in particular had a

very bam-like aspect, except that it was completely open on three sides. The stracture

was built of steel I-beams, but in my mind they would become wooden constmctions and

the roof would be covered in tin. The roof also had a distinctive raised center section that

allowed the heat to rise out of the stmcture, and allowed more natural light to penetrate

into the shade undemeath. In its original form, the roof would have been represented by

a set of profile flats that would fly in at the extreme upstage, and then additional sets of

columns would descend downstage to give additional perspective to the painted roof It

would cover the stage from side to side and have other pieces of the picnic grounds

visible in the background (Figure 5).

24

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25

Starbuck's wagon, or, as it is named in tiie script. The Rainwagon, I decided

should look like a cross between a gypsy wagon, a circus wagon and a medicine man's

wagon. According to the stage directions, it should be:

For all its tawdriness, it is his Wagon of Wonderiand. Decked out in gypsyish colors, it combines the frappings of the bunko artist, the phrenologist- cranial areas marked off in reds, blues, yellows-the fireworks maker, the medicine man, the faith-healer, snakecharmer, man of magical moonlights and mysteries. (Nash, Jones and Schmidt 1-4-35)

The preliminary sketch (Figure 6) barkened back to a design for another show, Cmplt

Wrks of Wllm Shkspr. Abridged, in which a performance wagon provided the entire set.

I had only recentiy realized that the design for that wagon had come in large part from a

drawing that I had done for my brother over fifteen years ago featuring a medicine man's

wagon on another world. My bucket still had water in it from those earlier designs.

With the basic design elements now set, it was time to begin constmction, but as

we all know, designs are subject to change as a project comes to fruition. Some changes

were necessitated by direction and blocking, some by budgetary consfraints, and some by

the unyielding demands of the calendar.

Figure 6. Starbuck's Wagon Sketch

26

CHAPTER IV

PRODUCTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

August of 20P1 was to mark the beginning of my term as the Technical Director

for the Department of Theafre and Dance. I had been the designer and TD of the

Permian Playhouse in Odessa, TX, for almost four years, but I had never tried to design a

show, frain a new shop staff, build two shows at once, and continue my studies as an

M.F.A. student at the same time. There was a certain amount of dead time before tiie

scene shop was up and running that we sorely missed as we got closer to opening.

We began the build with the constmction of the portal flats. The inner edges of

the flats had tapering sides to them because the telephone poles which were to be painted

on them were to be in forced perspective and lean out at a seven degree pitch off plumb.

They were built as mirtor images for the two sides of each portal, but since each portal

had different dimensions, they did not lend themselves to any of tiie labor savings of

mass production. I designed the portals so tiiat the top section would be made of

standardized flats that were tiie same, so tiiat, at least, was a savings. We also began to

build the tiiree-dimensional poles tiiat would be mounted at tiie edge of the stage,

constiiicting them from thin sfrips of wood and clotii mache so that they would be as

light as possible.

After much head scratching and consternation, the flats for tiie portal sides were

finished, covered, sized and joined so tiiat the scenic painting on them could begin. I

27

provided scale drawings and a painted rendering for the scenic artists (Figures 7 & 8), but

I executed the painting on the first set of legs to demonstiate techniques and to provide a

visual reference for tiie other painters. It was difficult to tiim the painting over to them,

but tiiere was no way that I could have done it all. There were many instances where I

was not happy with the painters' work, and I could always see the difference between

what I had painted and what they had done, but the differences were probably not

apparent to the audience.

I had not had time to finalize the drawings for Starbuck's wagon before rehearsals

began and the director needed some specifics to work witii. Additionally, he expressed a

desire that it be provided with rumting boards for Lizzie to sit on. Professor Christoffel

suggested that there were some two-wheeled carts in storage that might be modified more

easily than building the wagon from scratch. I investigated and found a large cart that

would serve as the basis for the rear of the wagon, and a small cart that could be

scavenged for the wheels that could work for the front. Not having to build the wheels for

the front or back would save several days' work. I mounted the front wheels on two

independent axles contained in a false wooden one that was then supplied with a pivot.

A yoke and tongue were attached to the axle so that the wagon could be steered in and

out of the stage left alcove where it would store. The resulting wagon varies from the

preliminary sketch, but shows a direct relationship, and on the whole I was pleased.

While I was building the wagon, constmction was started on File's office wagon

by my head carpenter and shop staff. The walls were framed much as in standard

28

Figure 7. Painter's Elevation, Stage Right Front

29

Figure 8. Painter's Elevation, Stage Left Front

30

housing constmction with the exception that a recess was created at the bottom of the

wall that would house the casters on which it would roll. A small platform in the shape

of a parallelogram was built to stabilize the stage right end of the walls and cany the

doorway into File's office. The stage left wall was hinged to the back wall with a desk on

wheels attached for stability. A small balusfrade with a swinging gate was added to the

platform to serve as a barrier when a character entered the office. The rail was a

tongue-in cheek reference to the old Andy Griffith television show, although the

reference might have been too subtle for most people to get. The walls of the office were

painted a dirty off-white with wooden wainscoting around the lower section, and a

bulletin board with lots of old papers attached was added to the wall for dressing.

The picnic tables and the bandstand were constmcted much as described in the

previous chapter, although I did have to purchase some expensive casters for under the

bandstand. It moved on and off three times in the course of the show and was becoming

difficult to steer and noisy as it moved.

The windmill proved to be an interesting challenge that took some

experimentation to make work. I searched around town for an electric motor to turn it,

but was unable to locate one with the proper gear reduction that we could afford. The

wheel could not turn too fast or it would fly apart and possibly injure someone, but after

several tries, I found that if I used our Milwaukee variable speed drill with a hose clamp

around the trigger, I could get it to come on and spin at an acceptable rate. The wheel

was cut out of tiiree-quarter plywood, and tiie blades were cut from one-quarter luann

31

hardwood plywood and attached to the center of the wheel with brads. I secured a five-

sixteenths by six-inch carriage bolt through the center of the wheel and chucked it in the

drill. The drill was then mounted on top of the derrick and plugged into one of the

dimmers of the lighting system so we could confrol it from the booth. Finally, the derrick

was mounted on casters and counterweights from the fly system were secured to the

bottom to give the whole stmcture some stability.

Time grew short and on the "Crew Night," which fraditionally happens on the last

Thursday before techrucal rehearsals start, we began to assemble the large parts of the

set. The top portions of the portals had been joined and painted and were hanging on

their appropriate battens, so we now joined the legs to each of the portal tops in order.

The very front portals attached to tiie front of each side of the proscenium wall and were

quite heavy and awkward to position. A little last minute surgery was required on one

side to make it fit. The ground row was erected from a material called "r-board" that is a

foam house sheathing that is very light and rigid and accepts paint beautifiilly. A line of

mesas was drawn on the ground row and it was cut to the profile and painted. An

amazing fransformation took place that night, where tiiere had been nothing but a few

pieces and a lot of flats stacked against tiie wall, now, suddenly, there was a set.

Of course, we were not finished, and over the course of the next week we built

and painted the flats that would represent the frain station and also the pavilion. The

pavilion was simplified and the additional columns were deleted because we were

running out of usable fly lines. We mounted the three-dimensional telephone poles witii

32

their attendant scenery flats at the front of the side stages and then strung "wires" from

them to the painted poles at the front of the proscenium. A white scrim was hung on the

first fly line to enable us to mask the setting for pre-show. The last job was to paint the

floor, and I had decided that I wanted a scumbled brown texture to give the appearance

of West Texas dirt and to tie to the ground row along the back, which had been painted in

browns, reds and greens.

There were many long nights and very little sleep in the last week before the show

opened, but finally the set was finished and we were ready for opening night.

33

CHAPTER V

EVALUATION

Evaluation is an important part of the leaming process, for without self-

examination we cannot hope to grow as artists or as people. This is the point where I

answer the hard questions about the quality of my work and my diligence in

accomplishing my task.

I first must point out that this is not a show that I would have picked to design,

though it is rarely given to designers to chose the show. When I read the play and heard

the music for the first time, I was disappointed in the way the little play I had loved had

been converted into a big Broadway musical. I found the music corny and forgettable

and I was puzzled over the need to add so many peripheral characters. That said, most

designers will tell you that some of their best work has been done on plays that they did

not like, so my feelings about the play have very little to do with the quality of work.

To be honest, this was a design with which I stmggled. I had a hard time getting

an angle or hook into the material, and a hard time understanding what approach I would

take. In refrospect, I think that my design might have been better if I had found some

way to resolve the problems I had making the curved cyclorama work. Part of my

thinking when I changed to the portal concept was how long it had been since a design

like that had been done at the University Theafre. I thought that it would be a good

leaming process for the other students there who had never buih a cloth covered flat.

34

I also think that I learned more about the communication process v̂ ith other

members of the design team, and that I need to express my ideas more thoroughly and

clearly and produce the requisite paperwork so that there is no misunderstanding about

the direction we will take. As an example, I gave the lighting designer a floor plan but

did not have time to produce a hanging section or a half-scale model, consequentiy there

were lighting ladders hung in view of the audience between the telephone poles on the

portals. It was never a look that I was happy with, but it was a result of a failure to

communicate on my part, and by the time we saw what it looked like, it was too late to

change. Next time I will be more thorough in conveying my ideas, and, most

importantly, in documenting those designs for the other members of the team.

Overall, I think that the design was successful and said what I wanted it to say

about the production. From the time the scrim went up, the feeling was "Hey, this is a

musical in the old school fradition," and I think that is exactly what tiie book called for.

35

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Corbin, Richard K. and Balf, Miriam. Twelve American Plays. New York: Scribner, 1973

Ingham, Rosemary. From Page to Stage: How Theatre Designers Make Connections Between Scripts and Images. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1998

Jones, Tom. Making Musicals: An Informal Infroduction to the World of Musical Theafre. New York: Limelight Editions, 1998

National Association of Schools of Theafre. NAST Handbook 1994-1995. Reston,VA: National Association of Schools of Theafre, 1994

"N. Richard Nash, "Rainmaker' Author, Dead at 87." CNN.com. Book News. Online. Prodigy. December 19,2000

Rosati, Nancy. "Spotiight on Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt." Talkin' Broadway. Prodigy. May 14,2002

Rosenfield, Bill. "History: 110 in the Shade." Online. Prodigy. May 17,2002

36

APPENDDCA

SCENIC DESIGN: DRAFTDSfG PLATES

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