The End of Summer

It's been a busy month or so since I last wrote... the summer season at the Hangar theater ended with Trip To Bountiful, the story of a woman in Texas trying to get home. We had a lot of very detailed projects for this show, which was interesting and often challenging for the scene shop. With interns and apprentices leaving for school, our numbers were reduced, but many of the projects we worked on were portfolio projects for each of us to display our work, and so the fewer people in the shop, the easier it was for us all to work around one another.

Ticket booth

I worked on a beautiful ticket booth with our Master Carpenter, making a finished old-fashion booth that lifted and wheeled around with a handle mechanism. I also made a window piece and frame, which was great practice for some intricate fitting of pieces. I made a little roof piece and worked on huge, rough-hewn posts. During the load-in, I was a carpenter for the changeover and worked on a lot of the pieces that flew in and out: the roof, the window, the apartment wall. This show was a great way to the end the season because of the practice we all put in on detailed work.

Finishing touches on the ticket booth: routed edges, molding, all sanded and plastered or puttied

The window pane and frame I made! Becca made the bottom frame, which we put in later.

I made this day bed at the last minute for props, and am very proud of how it came out.

We were working right up til opening night on this show finishing things and especially working on these bench platforms that were controlled with casters on a pressurized air system to raise & wheel or lower & brake. It was quite a process. But the show opened successfully, and we all celebrated and then packed our bags and headed our separate ways, minus a skeleton crew to run the show and strike later in the month. 

I really enjoyed my time at the Hangar theater this summer. I learned a lot, grew in confidence about my skills, met a lot of contacts and friends, and solidified the fact that I love summer stock theater. Despite some rough patches-- as any theater, any job in the world, will have-- we produced an awesome season. Each show, we learned new things: we had Lend Me A Tenor, which was a hotel interior with big walls and basic scenery practices; Titanic the Musical, which we worked almost exclusively with metal; Full Gallop, which had a small set; Next to Normal, which combined wood and metal working; and Trip to Bountiful, which had finished pieces and furniture that really challenged our skills. Not to mention the kids' shows and the experimental line...it was a busy summer!

Thanks for reading!