Beg, Borrow & Steal....oh, and Rent

New props and set pieces come in each week. "Evita" is a bare-stage show compared to so many others we do. So it's not all about the "furniture ballet" like it was last year with "Pride and Prejudice". Which is good, because I will need the extra time to do lighting on this one. Below are Eva's vanity and love seat.

Painting Banners

We are creating several hanging banners with political slogans for a scene in Evita. Here, Chase and Noah back-paint a muslin backdrop with donated latex paint in order to stiffen the fabric and provide some flame retardant benefit. (Click photo to enlarge).

Below, my awesome scene painter, Dale Johnson, draws out the first political banner. It will have highly stylized imagery of the period. Director Ruthie Tutterow looks on from the house.

The Set Goes Up Early!

It's 6 weeks out from opening night. But it's time to build the set so that the cast has plenty of time to grow accustomed to the dangerous platform levels.

Here, some eager parent volunteers help me assemble the scaffolding. It's like a giant toy Erector Set, (but with no instructions!_ (Click our photos to enlarge them).


Here, head parent volunteer Kevin Pusch, helps the crew assemble the stage-left platforming. The scaffolding is dirty and rusty, but the rental company will not let me paint it, so stay tuned to see my creative solutions for decorating the pipes!


Mr. Pusch is retired, but seems to have lots of fun with what most other people call "work"! Here he is testing the weight-bearing strength of one of the "triscuits" we took from Triad Stage. Perfect! The wooden tops fit well and hold the weight of people as they should. Later, these triscuits will get covered in clear plexi-glass so I can shoot lights up at the actors!


The fun part for me is pointing out to the students how my original scale model, regardless of how rudimentary, is actually a good indication of how the set will really look during the play. Here you can see the stage-left platforming as it comes together in full scale!


As quality control, I like to have Mr. Pusch test anything dangerous before I allow the actors to use it. Here, Kevin is happy to test the cantilevered trusses that will hold up the 16 foot long bridge for Evita! (He loves this kind of stunt work!)

It's "Load-In" Day!

The delivery truck from the Brewer Scaffolding Company arrived, and our Maintenance staff helped unload several tons of painters' scaffolding. Here, Nedjo moves a pallet of parts toward the stage door. (Click photos if you need to enlarge them).


Crew members Niklas and Kris unload the pieces that are too wide for the tractor to load through our roll-up door. By the way, when the theatre facility is completed, this roll-up door will actually be INSIDE and this area will be enclosed as part of the "Sceneshop" carpentry room.



Roger guides the heavy load off the truck. In all, there are 400 pieces of scaffolding used to build my set. Yet even so, the rental of this equipment saves a lot of money compared to the usual lumber style construction!


Niklas and Kris show off the incredible strength needed to be a steelworker! We stacked all 400 parts on the orchestra pit cover to be sorted. There were no assembly instructions, so by process of elimination, we had to pull out the parts week needed first.

Oh fun...

As production starts on each play we always need to take a few moments to sort gel. The "kiddie drama camps" over the Summer really got things messed up. We use folders in three milk crates to sort the various colors of gel. The gels and folders are all numbered. I like to use one brand of gel to avoid confusion, and that brand is Roscolux. Here, my regular after-school tech crew sorts gel on the lip of the pit cover:

Spiking the Rehearsal Space

Our "black box" studio theatre is intentionally the same square footage as the stage floor in our proscenium theatre. That way we can tape out the set on the floor in the studio for choreography rehearsals while the main stage is in use for other things. (For instance, this weekend we rented the Sloan Theatre to the Fred Astaire School of Dance for their annual recital).

Anyway, my Stagecraft class learned how to spike the floor. Here, Tenesha uses a 100' measuring tape to help place spike marks for the stage-left platforms:


Here, Moises and A.J. spike Evita's balcony. By the way, I insist that only Broadway-grade cloth spike tape from Rose Brand is used in our theatre. All household "masking tape" and "duct tape" is strictly forbidden in this facility!!!


Here I'm pointing to the locations of the trap door "up-lights" on the scale model to be marked on the studio floor.

Musical Direction

Here, we see the Music Director, Judy Cram, (left), and the the Producer/Director/Choreographer, Ruthie Tutterow, as they have the first production meeting regarding music logistics.