Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Miracle Worker


The Miracle Worker, you all know the play, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan.
It is always a popular play and has been a good money maker and we did several student matinees that were all full.
In recent years we have not had too many student matinees as schools no longer have any money for field trips.
So the big scenic item on this play is of course the water pump which needs to really work for the big break through scene at the end.
It is not too hard to do, just a real pump mounted on a wooden box with a short pipe that goes down into a 5 gallon pail of water.
Once it is primed and working it was no problem.

Thinking back now I think this was our first show in the fall and Miss Julie was the second play, unlike I wrote in a previous entry.
The water pump was used again for Miss Julie after being bought for The Miracle Worker.
I thought I had programs from all the plays I have worked on but it turns out that I am missing a few here and there.
The programs help me fill in names and dates and help me remember things about the shows.
So do I have any stories about this show, of course I do.
The set had two levels with the bedroom on the upper level.
After I built the platforms and they started to rehearse on them they found that the audience could not see the cradle that was suppose to hold the baby Helen Keller.
It was decided that lower the platform but instead of taking it apart, removing the legs, cutting them and putting it all back together I decided to cut the legs in place.
After marking the legs a foot or so up from the floor and used a circular saw and started to cut the legs from one end.
When I was about halfway done the platform tilted over and raised the uncut legs up in the air which made them easy to trim.
I am not sure how I cut the middle legs without killing myself , I think we just pushed in a few longer legs to lift it all up just enough to get it done, but it did not take too long to do.
Not one of my brightest ideas but it was fast.

Once the platform legs were cut down, the rest of the set offered few additional problems.
Now if you know the play you are aware that there is a cute scene with a dog that is part of the play in which Helen tries to teach it to read sign language.
Animals and children onstage, always fun.
After the play with found nice piles of crap backstage.
Whoever was supposed to take care of the dog did not do a good job.

The scene designer had arranged a tour of the theatre for his 9 year old daughter’s class but then could not be there so I ended up doing it.
I was not sure what to expect but the group of kids who came were great.
One of my students who was also acting in the play helped me with the tour and we were able to answer most of their questions about the play.
I brought them up on the stage and showed behind the set and had them touch the walls which were still made of canvas at that time.
The biggest question the students had was they wanted to know why everything on the set was painted brown; walls, props, paintings and furniture.
I told them that the designer wanted to show the audience how Heller Keller, who was blind, saw the world: shapes but no color.
The kids seemed to think that was cool and they asked about many other questions and wanted to know how everything worked.
When I had one of the students run the main curtain up and down and they all enjoyed that too.

A week or so later I got a big box of thank you letters addressed to me and my student thanking us for the tour.
It was a very nice feeling.

Soon after meeting with the elementary school kids I gave more or less the same tour to a group of college students and they could care less.
Nothing I said or showed them impressed them at all.
They did not ask questions and just wanted to get out of the theatre as soon as they could.
Not a good crop of students that year.

We would do the play again thirteen years later, and yes we used the same pump.
I was just down in our storage area last week giving a tour to a guest scenic designer and I saw the pump, just hanging in the prop room waiting for the next time we do The Miracle Worker.
It has been fourteen years so I guess we are due to do it again soon.
I will let you know when and if we do the play again.

Classes start again this coming Monday and I am interested to see which students will be returning and what new students we will have.
It is always a surprise.



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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Mauritius “Post Office” Stamps Onstage


I have been a stamp collector for fifty of my fifty-six years and I have also been involved in Theatre for forty years.
In my collection I have many Theatre themed stamps and covers but only on a few rare occasions have I been able to use my knowledge of philately while working in Theatre.
I have provided copies of old stamps and covers for use on the stage only a handful of times.

I teach classes in Theatre Design and Technology at The College at Brockport and this fall our second production will be Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck.


For the first time ever I will be working on a play in which valuable stamps are a major part of the plot in which action revolves.
The two stars of the play are the one penny and two pence “Post Office” stamps printed in Mauritius 1847.
Some of the “Co-stars” are the US Zeppelin issues of 1930, the high value Columbians of 1893 and of course what play about famous stamps would be complete without a guest appearance of the Inverted Jenny of 1918.
There are references to most of the other of the great valuable stamps of the world in the play.

As a long time stamp collector it seems to me that the play almost writes it’s self: A person dies and leaves the stamps to heirs who are not sure about their value and tries to sell them without being ripped off.
There is a stamp dealer of dubious ethics, fighting relatives and greedy others. Lies, plotting and fights; an excellent evening of Theatre.


I write this in August the play is still months away as but we have already had early production meetings to start work on the play.
In addition to being the Technical Director in charge of building the set I also serve as the philatelic advisor trying to explain the world of stamp collecting to the rest of the production team and the actors cast in the play.

Many collectors will never see or own those super valuable of the stamps in the play but if we are lucky we may see them at a major stamp show or in a museum.
I know some collectors who do have some very nice and expensive stamps in their collections but I know of no one with either of the Mauritius stamps or the Inverted Jenny, although I do have a nice reproduction of the C3a that I got on Ebay for $10.



So what happens in the play?
Who gets the stamps?
You can find out for yourself  December 30 – December 8, 2012.
Details and ticket info; http://www.brockport.edu/theatre/current.html.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Miss Julie - "What a Life"


The fall of 1985, My forth year at Brockport, would be my first year as both the staff Technical Director and Lighting Designer.
Our season that year was: Miss Julie, The Miracle Worker, Scapino and A Little Night Music.
Miss Julie by August Strindberg was produced in our smaller Black Box Theatre and directed by Oh Kon Cho.
The set was designed by a student and had been entered in the American College Theatre Festival which meant that the production, if selected, would have to tour.
I think this have been the first set that I built that was all hard covered flats instead of traditional canvas ones.
We used only hard covered walls when I worked in the photo studio but up to this point working in Theatre I had only used hard covered, or Hollywood Flats, for smaller special units.
Miss Julie

The floor was covered with 1 foot square tiles made out of Masonite with a 45 degree bevel on each edge.
Putting the bevels on was a pain and very messy and was done long before a sawdust collector in the shop.
Like most set pieces we saved them and used them again about four years later for the floor in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
We had to make about a third more for Jimmy Dean and of course we still have them and they have been used many times over the years and have paid for themselves many times over.
I even lent them out once for a tour that went to a museum and they glued Velcro on the bottom so that they would stick to the carpet that on the floor.
Both the show was good and the set were good but it was not selected to go to the festival.

One of my favorite moments of the play was when the director, Dr. Cho, could not get Jeff, who played Jean, to give him the line reading he wanted.
I remember it as if it was yesterday:
Dr Cho: Jeff say “What A Life.”
Jeff:      What A Life.”
Dr Cho: No say “What a life.”
Jeff:      What a life.”
Dr Cho: No say “What a Life.”
 Jeff:     What a Life.”
Dr Cho: No say “What A life.”
Jeff:      What A life.”


Jeff could not hear what intonation that Dr. Cho wanted neither could anybody else.
Needless to say poor Jeff was at a loss as what to do.


Now I will admit here that I am not an acting teacher, coach or expert, but later I tried to work with him.
I told I was not sure what he wanted but if he said it like he meant it the audience would get it.
Running away to live with the rich and beautiful Miss Julie; “What a Life”.


In the middle of the play when Jean and Miss Julie are off having sex in the back peasants or local workers come in and have a party and dance about.
The daughter of one of the dancers was one of my work study students this past year.


Time does fly.