San Francisco!

After quite the cross-country journey, Krissy and River and I arrived in San Francisco with nowhere to stay. Her sublet deal turned out to be a scam. We made the best of it though; I stayed with a friend of a friend out in Oakland for a night before finding a cheap hotel in town, and we got plenty of sightseeing in!

 We walked up some of those famous hills in the city...they are indeed extremely steep.

 I admired lots of cool architecture like the geek I am.

 Me and River and our local friend spent some time at this park, Mission Dolores, between the Mission and Castro.

 Walking to the Jason Mraz concert that we attended courtesy of Krissy's friends in the local 16.

 The America's Cup stadium the local 16 made and manned for many events and concerts during the competition.

 We spent a lot of time walking at the piers.

 The Castro was probably my favorite neighborhood.

 Brian and I went to a reserve by mistake, instead of the park we were supposed to meet everyone at...it was a nice hike, that's for sure! Mt. Sutro

The actual rendezvous:  Tank Hill Park.

I really enjoyed San Francisco. The atmosphere and the people were very chill; everyone I met was very nice. We spent some time with the local 16 stagehands, which was awesome-- I hope to see them again. What a trip it was!

Road Trip Adventures

In August, my friend Krissy wrote to me to tell me that she had decided to move to San Francisco to join the local IATSE 16, and asked me to drive out with her. Although I was really worried about money, I decided to go! I had never driven across the country before or seen very much of it beyond the east coast, and I also wanted to make contacts with the many people she knows in the technical theater business.

The first day, we left from Burlington, VT in Krissy's Subaru with her stuff, my bag, and her dog River.

We had a beautiful day of driving through the Adirondacks and the rest of New York until we stopped for the night in Erie, PA and found this gem of a burger joint for dinner:

YUM.

Day 2 we drove for a while: we went through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and on down through St. Louis until we stopped at Krissy's friend's house in St.Charles. I don't think I took any pictures this day, other than a blurry, bug-smeared windshield shot of the arch in St. Louis as we rushed through. Krissy wanted to arrive in 5 days to start working, so we didn't stop very much to sightsee, though I started a pretty extensive list of things I want to see in this big country of ours.

Our third day on the road was pretty exciting. We saw a lot of corn fields in Kansas...and the car broke down (the first time). We called AAA and had an awesome tow truck driver and shop take care of us: an air conditioner fan had scraped through a radiator hose in her Subaru, a relatively easy fix.

Look at this beauty...

 We saw some pretty amazing sights the rest of that third day. For two girls from Vermont, this was a lot of open space and sky to take in.

 That night we had some more car problems. We limped it to a small city in Colorado and spent the night at a hotel, waiting to get the car checked out in the morning. Day 4 we made it to Denver....my first view of the mountains out west:

We spent a day and a half in Denver with a friends' parents, while Oleg at the Subaru Clinic tore the car apart to help us get on our way. 

He eventually discovered that the fuel pump needed replacing and made it happen by the evening of our 5th day. We hit the road that night and drove into Utah.

 Our 6th day was the longest. Krissy wanted to be in California that day, so we drove for 14 hours out of Utah, through Nevada, and into CA. We avoided the wildfires around route 80 by taking route 50, The Loneliest Road in America.

It was amazing to watch the landscape change. The day started in high elevations surrounded by that red rocky terrain; we slowly descended between mountain ranges. They just kept coming between plains, and they seemed to be bigger and bigger each time. It got drier out and the land turned more brown than red, with scrubby little plants covering everything. Route 50 was really quiet-- a beautiful drive. I was really glad we got the car 100% fixed before attempting that road though. It started getting very hazy, and you could just see the outlines of approaching mountains until you were right on top of them.

The cross into California was beautiful and dramatic. We hopped on route 80 (I think?) at that point, and it wound across mountains that had deep ravines and very tall, pointy evergreens all around.

We made it to San Francisco just after sunset, with the fog rolling in.

More to come on my time in San Francisco!

End of the Summer

After the flood at the Hangar, we opened our last show, Clybourne Park. The end of the summer was a strange time because of the clean up and also the excessive amount of time I spent wallpapering for Clybourne. The show had a pristine house for Act I but for Act II, the house was sold and stripped, resulting in a very different sort of setting. This was a big challenge for us.

Act I. Scenic Design by Steve Teneyck. Photo: Meg Hurley.

Act II. Scenic Design by Steve Teneyck. Photo: Meg Hurley.

 We made panels of foam covered in wallpaper that velcro-ed to the walls and were removed by stage management at Intermission during part of their big change. These took a lot of maintenance; I would have preferred to use something more durable, like lauan or masonite, but alas.

We had some fun projects on this show as well: a staircase, a series of window boxes that lit up all around the set and into the audience. 

I realize that I've totally skipped over our third show of the summer, 4000 Miles. That show also had an interior set, meaning lots of walls and doors and molding for us in the shop. This show was unusual in that it had a ceiling piece. Ceilings onstage are hard because the lighting designer has added shadows and obstacles to deal with; they make the space seem smaller.

In progress. Scenic design by Tom Burch. Photo: Meg Hurley

This set also has some fun projects for us, including the windowseat stage left I built; the kitchen stage right that was complete with a pantry and wallpaper; a door center stage that our intern had fun making creak.

The summer ended with a sort of frantic note for a lot of us. Some people stayed longer to work on the final kids show, but most of the staff was gone by the second week of August. I had the pleasure of staying a few extra days to see the shop off and rest up before my drive back to Boston. Although we go through a lot every summer and never know where or when the money is coming to fund these shows, it's hard to not want to go back! Ithaca is a pretty awesome place, and it doesn't hurt that I've made some close friends at the Hangar. We will see what next summer has in store for me.

Thanks for reading!

Flooding in Ithaca: 2013

Last weekend, the Hangar Theater experienced a natural disaster of fairly large proportions in the shape of a flash flood that occurred during a preview performance of Clybourne Park. I left the theater to get dinner around 8pm, noted the rising puddles in the parking lot that are often a nuisance when we get heavy rain, and returned around 9:30pm, expecting to finish up some work notes on the wallpaper for the show. 

Instead of parking and making my way inside for work, however, I stopped and stared at the sheer amount of water built up around the building. Many cars were buried halfway up the door in water; patrons were struggling to their vehicles through thigh-deep water in places. The lobby and backstage areas were flooded with several inches. Luckily, the stage itself and the scene shop and costume shop are raised higher up than the rest of the facility, which is in a swampy depression near the lake.

We spent the evening pushing cars out of the water (when put in neutral and NOT turned on, they usually drain out ok). When the last few staff members left, we turned off all the power with the fire department. I carried Brody, one of my boss's dogs, to the car as we headed out....the rain was increasing again at that point.

In the morning, the entire tech staff and all of the interns and apprentices still here came in to clean and restore the lobby. There were still several inches of water inside when we arrived.

We started by sweeping out the lobby and moving everything outside. Then we had to go through the Box Office, Concessions storage, costumes, our green room lounge/backstage area, and throw a lot of things away or send them to get cleaned. I spent most of the day in a series of small closets cleaning out boxes of programs that got wet and more fun stuff. Our electrics and sound equipment had to be cleaned and restocked; hundreds of props relocated. Spending the day wading through muddy water and sewage was pretty tough on everyone, especially for some of us who had been working 20 hour days on Clybourne Park.

Friday was going to be opening night for Clybourne Park. The theater decided that it would be best to postpone the opening until the next day so we could get everything in tip-top shape again. Once the water level went down, it was amazing how fast we restored the place to normal. If non-structural damage has to happen anywhere, a theater is not a bad place for it because they are usually full of efficient people who are used to cleaning and moving things and doing all sorts of shitty jobs. And so we are pleased to have opened Clybourne Park this weekend!

For more information on the Hangar Theater, please visit the website here.

Process shots

I have some interesting photos to share of some of the building processes of our scenery. The first two shows of the summer, Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Pinkalicious, shared a set (with lots of different elements to distinguish two very different shows)

Early during load in of Lovers.

Later on during load in...what a difference a carpet can make!

 Pinkalicious, the first kids show of the season, had some fun projects for our shop to make. My staff carpenter, Meg, and our intern Chris built nestling ottomans that formed a circle.

structure.

covered with muslin and lots of glue.

the counterpart piece, painted and drying!

I built a table for Pinkalicious that rotated at the center to become a seat.

inside is a steel pipe and a series of supports allowing the table to actually be two halves.

finished view

used in the show as a table....

and as a doctor's chair!

the table was standable as well. (there are lots of safety rules about structures that can be stood on and danced on in the theater).

Scenic design for Lovers by Ken Goldstein; design for Pinkalicious by Marthe Hoffmann. All photos taken by Meg Hurley.

Thank you for reading! For more information on the Hangar Theater, including our internship, apprentice, and educational programs, please visit the website here.

July!

Wow, it has been a month since I last wrote. A lot has happened here in Ithaca! We had a successful run of Last of the Red Hot Lovers, our comedic season opener. During the 2 weeks of performances, we built our next show, a big musical called Gypsy.  This show is all about the death of vaudeville and the transitions people have to go through in life.

Photo: Meg Hurley. Scenic Design: Brian Prather

For the scene shop, Gypsy had some interesting bits and pieces, but it wasn't a show that could come together until we loaded it in all the way (for example, no walls to test fit or furniture pieces to build). We had a series of platforms 8' in the air that were held up by pipes and a spiral staircase; this platforming is where the band lived for performances.  We built a delicate false proscenium that framed the opening of the stage and had light bulbs set (see above!) There was also an intricate flooring border that took some time to build and piece together with the footlights.

Photo: Meg Hurley. Scenic Design: Brian Prather

The placards on either side of the stage changed from scene to scene with descriptions or locations; we built and maintained 34 of these. The holders are beautiful pieces my staff carpenter Meg built.

Photo: Meg Hurley. Scenic Design: Brian Prather

Photo: Meg Hurley. Scenic Design: Brian Prather

Photo: Meg Hurley. Scenic Design: Brian Prather

Gypsy closes tonight and we go into changeover for our next show, 4,000 Miles. More updates to come soon!