The Not So Epic Week Recap

Hi, it's me.

The one who said they'd update almost a week ago. Sorry. It's been getting slower around work, but I've been tired and doing other things after it that I never get a chance to come on, so now I'm making it up with an awesome week in review epic post!


At the begining of the week there wasn't much to report on things that I did. We've been doing a lot of work in the back, tyding up things and reorganizing while we have some downtime now that Humana is getting slower. Wild Blessings (the Wendell Berry piece) started tech so we shipped the trees over to the theatre using the carpenter's flat bed. The only other thing we had to do for Wild Blessings was do some set dressing. Doc, Taj, Elliot, and I put sheets of greenery down, and then added individual pieces of fake long grass. That lasted toward the end of the day on Monday, and then Tuesday morning the rest of the department came to finish it up.

Wednesday I had some stock projects to do, but I also had to gather some props for the Apprentice Showcase. I found some awesomely cheesy records while looking for a Barry Manilow one. Then I organized some chandliers that were down from where they had been hanging (we had new lights installed a couple of weeks ago, and they were in the way), and then I had to organize the table lamps a little bit.

I finished up the table lamps this morning and then went on a Lowe's run to pick up a few things and then headed over to the theatre to drop off something for Doc.


One of the biggest organizing projects we have is organizing our soft goods fabric area.

There are a ton of bolts of fabric, and a lot we probably don't need. Joe and Elliot made new holders out of one of our shelves that we had, and the left over pieces of sono tube. They then pulled out all of the fabric and we all took down the storage we had.


We had a pallet that we were stacking all of the wood on, but Joe realized it wasn't going to fit through the aisle. He tried to get the fork lift in and raise it up high enough but as soon as he moved the whole things came crashing down. We then had to lug everything to the main aisle but we finally got the entire thing down and all of the wood in the dumpster. Now all that's left is organizing all of the fabric.

Tomorrow I will be working on a project for Roanoke, one of the ten minute shows. We had actually already done the show for the Apprentice Tens, but the set is a little different in this one so I'll be working with on a Native American spear.

Into the Woods...err Shop

Wow, it's been a while. Sorry about that. I'll do more of a recap of the past week sometime this weekend when I've gotten more rest.


I will tell you about yesterday. For the show Wendell Berry (that's not it's real name, but I don't know exactly what it's called, it's a show the head of ATL co-wrote about the works of Wendell Berry) calls for a pretty slim set, except for these huge 20 foot tall trees. The other day, Elliot and I went over to a local supply store to pick up sono tubes. After we got them back Taj worked on sanding off the wax that is on it, then muslin and a mixture of wood glue and paint were applied to the tube.


After that was dry, we had to do a treatment on the trees using dry-vit. Dry-vit is basically this thick, almost grits consistentecy, medium used for insulation, kind of like stucco. We had to apply this on the trees in sections, and then scrap lines into it to give it a textured bark effect. It really doesn't take that long to do the tubes, but it does take it a long time to dry (about 12 hours). Because of this, we couldn't do full tubes because it would be resting on itself. We thought it would take longer and we had planned to divide into groups and work two shifts during the weekend. The first shift took the afternoon off yesterday, and then the second took it today. By the end of the day it was apparent that we probably wouldn't be coming in over the weekend, because Joe and I were able to finish the trees so that they all had half a tree covered, but it was still up in the air. I told Joe that I wanted to stand the trees up and pretend I was in a forest in the shop to which he replied, "Then you can be in your own personal production of Into the Woods." I like this idea.

Yesterday was the opening for Under Construction. We ended up getting empty seat passes, so we figured we wouldn't get in because it was in our smallest stage. Luckily, Slasher was playing, so we ended up going to that. It was hilarious, so much better than when I had read it a couple of months back. The show really played up that it was campy, and that it knew it. I love shows like that, because it just ends up coming across as fun, not like other shows that are campy and try to be serious. We headed down to the bar like always and hung out for some drinks.

Today was a pretty slow day. It was my half day, and things were pretty slow and quiet at the shop. I spent the morning putting away a ton of props that had yet to be put away from at least January to gear up for college weekend and the tours of the shop. Today also was the opening for Brink, the apprentice show. Since that show was sold out for the opening, we went as a group to watch a final run through of the show. I worked on a ton of the props, so it was good to see a lot of my work on stage.

After Brink, I was told that I wouldn't have to come in, but I ended up getting out about 2 hours early. It's going to be nice to have a weekend where I can relax, and maybe read some of the books that I have pushed aside that past couple of months.

Smoking Feet

Today was a pretty relaxing day, which was good because Heather and I (along with the rest of the shop, but we work the most closely together) were loopy from sleep deprivation and the long hours at the shop. We found almost everything funny. We finished the fake box springs today with the horrible fabric seen above. It actually turned out to be pretty easy and fast, especially because both of us were working on it.

The two beds were a bit different in construction since one of the beds has a fog machine inside to simulate the actor's feet smoking. With that one, after a layer of batting was stapled loosely around the frame I stapled it to the bottom, then the frame was screwed back on.

(the box is where the machine sits)

After flipping it over I stapled it to the top. Another board was put on top of that to cover the machine so that the actors could sit and lay on the bed. With the piece I couldn't staple over it because we needed to still have access to the inside, so I ended up stapling a tiny piece around that to hide the wood. The second bed was much simpler because it was a normal bed. The only difference in the technique was that we had to cover the entire top as well as the sides because the mattress gets shoved around, and it would expose our secret that it wasn't a box spring.

Both beds were done by the end of the day. Doc played around with the fog machine for a while troubleshooting it. I have more pictures of the bed process, but sadly I left my camera at work so it's phone pictures for now. Hard Weather Boating Party tech starts tomorrow, and Absalom opens tomorrow night.

Out Early

Today was slower in relation to what I have been doing.

After our meeting first thing this morning, Mark and I headed over to the theatre where he put some more apples in the tree and I steamed the curtains. Afterwards, I redid the notes for like the 50th time, handed them to Mark and then got stuck with nothing to do because Mark had left for Absalom rehearsal, and Doc was at the theatre.

I helped Heather out by starting to upholster a chair and then once Doc was back I started on my project. There are two beds in Hard Weather Boating Party that Joe and Will had made wood platforms as the box spring. One of the beds had a fog machine in them, and the other didn't. I had to wrap some box spring fabric (I don't know what to exactly call it, but it's literally the fabric you would use for box springs) around the sides so when they are seen it will look like a box spring and not a wooden box. I started cutting the batting for one of them before the end of the day.

We got out early today! We were done by 5:30, made sure there were no notes from Mark, and were out by 6. Heather and I, along with Brad went over to Wild Wings to have some 40 cent wings and beer. Taj joined us after a while.

Case of the Mondays

Today was spent with more glueing of the moss to the stage. During tech weekend, all of the moss that we had worked on during Friday was completely gone (apparently there are a number of fight scenes on our fragile moss). We didn't do as much as we had done the first time, and hopefully the moss will have adequate time to dry tonight (the theatre is dark) so that not all of it will be gone during performances. The show opens on Thursday.


Joe and Elliot worked on the tree some more, since one of the branches was trimmed from the tree. We ate lunch downtown, and by 3:30 Taj and I were headed back to the shop. That's 6 hours of back breaking moss glueing non-fun. I was drained, especially since we had already spent a full day Friday doing the same task. Doing that one thing for so long completely wiped me out, and it didn't help that it was done on a Monday.


When I got back to the shop I had a couple of small projects. Alice wanted me to make a bag for the American flag that they were using in Brink. Afterwards, I went to help Joe and Elliot and then ended up going back to the theatre with Taj and Elliot to strike the Hard Weather Boating Party furniture from the stage. It had gotten placed there for light focus, and is in rotation with Slasher, so it had to be moved for Slasher's performance tomorrow. By the time we got back it was time to leave for the day.

Well, I'm off to make dinner and then head to bed.

Flashback: Fake Food

I decided that for my first flashback post, I should do it about fake food. I've done a lot of fake food here at ATL and also some at BMC. Fake food is essential in props.

At Brevard, since our stage was so small and in a blackbox, fake food was really hard to pull off so I did a ton of stuff with real food. I'm really good at faking alcoholic drinks that are edible and can be used onstage. Most sodas look like alcoholic drinks, and can be used as a substitute. I don't like to add food coloring to edible drinks because of the risk factor in it dying fabrics in the inevitable case that it will get on costumes or set dressings. Also, food coloring adds a taste that most actors do not prefer (including myself). The best remedy for this is either combing drinks, or watering down them.


One of the tough things about using real food is the actor's diet restrictions. For Eat Your Heart Out, the actress who had the most food to be consumed onstage was a vegetarian. I had to make oysters and snails that looked like the real thing, but wasn't. I ended up using different varieties of canned mushrooms. The actress, thankfully, wasn't opposed to having the mushrooms touch a well cleaned oyster shell. I went to the local fish market, and arranged a deal with the guy and ended up getting the shells for free because he was going to toss them out anyways.


The one thing I have found that I make the most is fruit trays. I think it's because of the easiness of it, and also because of how well it can be translated to different time periods and still fit the scene. During BMC's production of The Magic Flute, I had to make an extremely big fruit dish that the lead was supposed to pretend he was gorging himself on. Since it was done on a proscenium stage, and with a full orchestra pit separating him and the audience I was able to cheat and use some foam to help build up the structure, using less fruit and vegetables. The back was completely uncovered with any fruit, but because I covered the other three sides of the foam building blocks you could not see it.


I also did a tray for ATL's production of A Christmas Carol along with some other savory dishes. Most of the dishes I pulled fake food from the back and rearranged them, but others I had to make from scratch.


Mark had some research of food that he liked and we used that as a basis for some of the creations. I recreated a pudding dish by painting cordial glasses on the inside and filling it with tissue paper. This not only made it look like there was pudding in the dish, but also helped out the fact that I was not using glass paint, but rather acrylics. Because it was acrylics it was see-through and the tissue paper blocked the light from escaping. After it was assembled I dressed it with doilies and various plants from the back.


Normally the creation of fake food is done with foam. Using blue foam is one of the best materials because of it's availability (if you have a Home Depot or Lowes, you have some and won't need to get it ordered) and ease of use. It also comes in a wide variety of thicknesses, and are pretty firm so it won't cave in and will hold up well to wear and tear of multiple shows. Here is the creation of a pie (a very weird pudding/meat/we had no clue pie) from start to finish:



As you can see in the first picture, I am cutting out the base on the band saw. In the second picture I am adhering multiple layers of foam using green glue because we did not have the desired thickness. After I had sculpted and sanded the entire thing, I added a layer of foam coat over top of it to smooth out some of the holes in the foam. After that it got it's paint treatments. I think it came out looking pretty decent to what my research picture looked like. It took me about half a day to finish the entire thing, and much of that was drying time.

Brown Thumb

Today we ended up only working for about 3 hours, which was nice. I made some more notes for Absalom, and pulled some more books for the show as well.

I then started work on staining chairs for Hard Weather Boating Party. There is about 30 chairs to stain, since the chair gets broken every night. At first I had to mix some colors to find what our scene designer wanted, but I'm HORRIBLE at it. I've never been good a mixing colors in any medium, let alone stains. Doc picked out a stain he liked that required no mixing, so Elliot and I stained one chair so that we can have one completed to see how it looks after sealing it and putting gloss on it tomorrow. Somehow during the process I ended up getting a perfect brown thumb. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I have a feeling it was when I was taking off a sticker and had taken off my gloves to try to pick at it, I'm sure I put my thumb down in a drip that I didn't even realize was there.

Oh well, it will fade after a while.