You know how you feel after a very long, physically demanding day when you've poured out every bit of energy you have to accomplish something big? Well, that is the kind of exhaustion I feel tonight.
I painted drops for the Wizard of Oz today and I am satisfied with them. I have a bit of detail work to do on Munchkin land tomorrow, but otherwise the three huge drops are finished. I have Professor Marvels wagon left to paint and I may go in and finish that one up tomorrow.
I have quite some time left before it's crunch time with the show, and I feel I'm well ahead of the game. With the drops complete, the few props and set pieces well underway, the costumes are the last of my worries. Those will be picked up on the 31st of the month. In fact, at this point it seems very unlikely the show will use any of our costumes at all.
Much more likely we will be using the entire show put on by Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. They are desperately beautiful costumes, truly works of art. I shudder to think of the amount of money spent on them. It's a staggering, mind bending thing for me.
Our budgets are far less, almost non-existent. Yet the work our talented costumer, Laurie, has done is nothing short of magnificent. Our costume closet is worth around 100,000-should we have to replace everything in it. Yet what we've spent on it is a fraction of that.
Less than a fraction.
A smidge of a fraction of a pinch.
With breathtaking results.
And their sets and props are equally impressive. I am absolutely in awe of the amazing sets they keep in a warehouse. I only saw the 5 holiday shows they rotate every year, which they keep in one very large warehouse. The others they keep in another warehouse.
The WoO is coming together. Several parts were double cast, and one of the witches is an unfortunate pick. She really can't act, but is a friend of the director. The others are stellar, but this one is just struggling. It would help tremendously if she listened to our director, and she seems to at the time he's talking to her, but then she does whatever the heck she was doing before.
It's like she's deaf to instruction.
The barn is coming along nicely. Jackie worked all day on the office while I worked on the drops. The office looks fantastic. Scott came over and helped take down two obnoxious and useless things hanging on the walls in there. I have no idea what those things were used for, but they are out of there now.
With a few more weeks of solid work, I think we could clear out the middle room of the barn and clean out the crap. Once the water problem is solved, we can clean up the mold and freshen the whole place up. It's the stench of wet, disgusting moldy fabric and rotting stuff that permeates the place.
Once the basics are taken care of we can get down to the serious business of reworking the interior of the barn. New green room, new stage and interior, new actors room, make-up room, prop and costume rooms, etc. The lower stage area will be a cabaret/speakeasy sort of place. For some different, smaller performances. Maybe even some classes, like adult dance classes, kids acting classes, stagecraft and technical courses. One of our group is a puppeteer. All in all a much more user friendly atmosphere.
Things are looking up at 63rd Street Productions, Inc.
I painted drops for the Wizard of Oz today and I am satisfied with them. I have a bit of detail work to do on Munchkin land tomorrow, but otherwise the three huge drops are finished. I have Professor Marvels wagon left to paint and I may go in and finish that one up tomorrow.
I have quite some time left before it's crunch time with the show, and I feel I'm well ahead of the game. With the drops complete, the few props and set pieces well underway, the costumes are the last of my worries. Those will be picked up on the 31st of the month. In fact, at this point it seems very unlikely the show will use any of our costumes at all.
Much more likely we will be using the entire show put on by Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. They are desperately beautiful costumes, truly works of art. I shudder to think of the amount of money spent on them. It's a staggering, mind bending thing for me.
Our budgets are far less, almost non-existent. Yet the work our talented costumer, Laurie, has done is nothing short of magnificent. Our costume closet is worth around 100,000-should we have to replace everything in it. Yet what we've spent on it is a fraction of that.
Less than a fraction.
A smidge of a fraction of a pinch.
With breathtaking results.
And their sets and props are equally impressive. I am absolutely in awe of the amazing sets they keep in a warehouse. I only saw the 5 holiday shows they rotate every year, which they keep in one very large warehouse. The others they keep in another warehouse.
The WoO is coming together. Several parts were double cast, and one of the witches is an unfortunate pick. She really can't act, but is a friend of the director. The others are stellar, but this one is just struggling. It would help tremendously if she listened to our director, and she seems to at the time he's talking to her, but then she does whatever the heck she was doing before.
It's like she's deaf to instruction.
The barn is coming along nicely. Jackie worked all day on the office while I worked on the drops. The office looks fantastic. Scott came over and helped take down two obnoxious and useless things hanging on the walls in there. I have no idea what those things were used for, but they are out of there now.
With a few more weeks of solid work, I think we could clear out the middle room of the barn and clean out the crap. Once the water problem is solved, we can clean up the mold and freshen the whole place up. It's the stench of wet, disgusting moldy fabric and rotting stuff that permeates the place.
Once the basics are taken care of we can get down to the serious business of reworking the interior of the barn. New green room, new stage and interior, new actors room, make-up room, prop and costume rooms, etc. The lower stage area will be a cabaret/speakeasy sort of place. For some different, smaller performances. Maybe even some classes, like adult dance classes, kids acting classes, stagecraft and technical courses. One of our group is a puppeteer. All in all a much more user friendly atmosphere.
Things are looking up at 63rd Street Productions, Inc.