Sunday, January 9, 2011

Alice in Wonderland

     I am the set designer for my school's musical production.  I'm totally into this task, but also, a little intimidated. I've done a few things of this sort when I worked at the preschool, but you know, there is only so much comparison to be drawn betwen things made for a preschool, and things made for a middle school musical production.  Not a Broadway play, but still, a bit more than preschoolers performing a sign-language version of  "New York, New York." 

     Also, I'm used to calling the shots in this kind of thing - telling people (nicely, I always try to play nicely with others) "we're doing it this way," and now, I have to listen to more suggestions from others. Also, since I've never worked on a real stage production, some of the points the director made were things that never even occurred to me before, so I have to take them into consideration.  I'm fine with that, but it did cause me to revamp my original plan.  Which was may be a good thing, because my original plan was quite a bit more complicated than what the director had in mind.

      They don't really seem to be able to picture what I have in mind, so yesterday I spent a few hours making a few parts of the set for one of the scenes. 


     I didn't go crazy on this mock-up and add all the details (and as you can see, I didn't even do the left side of the backdrops, but I think you can get the idea) - the trunks of the trees are not all going to be the same color brown, and they won't be totally straight.  the green bushes in front of the platforms will reverse to have rosebushes on the backs, and there will be LOTS more mushrooms.  I originally wanted a mushroom or two to have a battery operated light inside that would shine down on the ground through the pleated underside.  But I know when to call myself absolutely nuts, so I'm scratching that idea already. 

     I'm going to show it to the director tomorrow, and hopefully, she gets the general idea, and likes my vision. 

     Any suggestions? 

3 comments:

  1. You've done "a a few things?" Are you kidding? From what I know you did an entire school, which is a hellova lot more than a stage. Just condense the timeline and get helpers, thats all. Nice job!

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  2. I would also ask Tony Bocchemuzzo for tips, the mans been doing it for years.

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  3. LOL! Stage, I've never done anything for the stage - well, I've never done SCENERY for the stage. ok, I've done a few things. I had a student stop in today and say he wants to help with stage crew. He said he would be interested in painting and stuff, so I am on my way. Off to Wal-Mart to buy fabric for the mushroom caps!

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