set build

Set Build: Anastasia

Anastasia closed recently at Gallery 7 Theatre. Here are a few build pics. It was a large set with lots of locations; despite being enhanced by projections there was still a large set stretching across the stage.

Set was designed by Hayley Bamford and was built by me, with help from several volunteers.

The curved stairs were designed well and fairly easy to build. The railings were a bigger challenge – curved with balusters. (There is another blog post about the balusters.)

Load in Day came and went and we got everything together and painted. The 11-foot high truck with curved stairs attached worked better than expected. Re-painting the 12- and 18-foot high screens took a lot of my time (to help the projections pop better).

More production photos to come…

Video: Creating Foam Balusters for Anastasia

Here is a video I made for Gallery 7 about the process of carving custom foam balusters for Anastasia railings. Most of it focuses on the work of my dad, Chris, who did the lion’s share of the work. (Note: set design and painting was done by Hayley Bamford.)

The Little Mermaid set design & build

I recently designed and built the set for VTT Centre Stage’s production of The Little Mermaid Jr.

Here are a bunch of build photos!

The first main thing to build for rehearsals were the stairs. There are 4 of them and I am quite proud of them. They are wavy, interlocking, and fit together with a wavy platform as well. Their main purpose was to give levels for the many performers. But they were versatile as they could be used for the sides of the ship, and the various palaces.

I then made a large rock on casters. (I also provided 5 other lighter rocks that I had made for Anne)

The next project was a custom styrofoam arch and a ship’s hull. I used expanding spray foam to glue styrofoam to a 2×2 & luan frame. I then carved the styrofoam with a circular saw.

I modified the boat I made for Anne into a row-able boat. Dave and I went fishing with it, in the workshop. Later the school requested I make it higher because the actor’s knees were visible moving (it was foot propelled). I did make it higher, but felt it did ruin the effect a bit because it was so high.

Next I worked on Ursula’s cauldron. I made it out of a bucket, chicken wire and paper mache. It was quite fragile and large and ultimately the school asked me for another smaller one because this one was awkward to use, and falling apart a bit… I ended up passing it on to another school and built the smaller one as requested, which worked quite well. I stuck purple lights inside and a battery powered fog machine and got a very cool effect.

A few other little things – some jail bars made of crooked branches, a half shell, reeds and columns…

And last but not least, the piece de resistance, the vinyl floor!

This was my 3rd time painting this large chunk of sheet vinyl in the school gym. On Friday night I did the base coat and all the texturing, let it dry overnight, and on Saturday I put a clear coat on it and prepared it for rolling up on Sunday when the cast was back. I was going for a sandy ocean floor but I added some “wavy light” lines with my spray gun, which seemed a tad bold at the time but I think it really worked out well.

What generally works for me when buying floor paint, is that I go to my local pro paint store (Cloverdale Paint where I rarely shop because their paint is so expensive, but it’s also very good quality and I know it will stick nicely to the vinyl). They usually have a variety of 5 gallon pail “mistints” that are very reasonably priced. I buy a few other 1 gallon mistints and mix my own base colour and go from there. In this case I was quite worried that my mixed base colour turned out too pink, so I added quite a bit of texture over it, and it turned out very good.

And then finally it was load-in day! Due to the nature of the set design, there was no large structure to build on site! So it was a matter of laying down the floor, painting the seams, and sliding all the set pieces around while V built lights. I also repainted part of the stairs. (I should mention I didn’t paint much of the set at all actually – a parent volunteer did most of it and did a fantastic job).

More production photos to come, hopefully! But here is the last scene with the kids (all 70 of them!) before we took it all down:

Set Build: Glory

Gallery 7 Theatre recently presented a play called Glory by Tracey Power. On the surface it is a hockey play about a very succesful women’s team that played in Ontario in the 1930’s. It has a variety of themes, however; and is a different type of play than many I’ve seen. I was tasked with building the (simple) set and as our set designer was out of commission at the time, I also took on the painting and a few of the projections.

Director is Gabe Kirkley, and set designer is Jeff Kiers.

Here are some photos from the build.

joining 2 12-foot sonotubes with a smaller sonotube “sleeve”

As you can see it is basically a hockey rink with some furniture. A few more photos once painting started:

blessed with a dry sunny day in January to put a base coat of paint on the vinyl

And a few photos from tech week:

The “ice” turned out better than I expected. We used cheap sheet vinyl sourced from our local End of the Roll. I painted the bottom of it a light grey (it still looked bright white under lights). Then added some other colours to make it look dirtier, a couple coats of clear coat to protect it… it lasted the whole run but definitely got scuffed up by the hockey sticks and boots.

Official production photos to come….

Set Build: Charley’s Aunt

My first build for Theatre in the Country (TIC) is in the books! Charley’s Aunt is now playing in Langley: http://www.theatreinthecountry.com

It was a new experience for me – building on site instead of in a workshop – and with quite a large team of support, from carpenters to painters to set designers and set decorators – many of them volunteers. Combined with a simple set plan, it all came together relatively quickly.

It’s a funny play with some strong lead characters and delicious plot twists.

Set Build: Miracle on 34th St.

Gallery 7‘s nearly-sold-out production of Miracle on 34th St runs for another week. Here are a few build photos.

Set Design is by Sheldon Jeans, Director is Sarah Green.

Stairs, stairs and more stairs… it took 5 days in the shop to make mirror sets of these: 14 curved steps, had to be portable, had to be able to walk under the top part…

Then there were some curvy flats with 3 elevator doors (thanks to my dad for helping with those!), some stanchions, a “Macy’s” cut-out, and (les Pièce de résistance) 3 ugly desks.

what do you think? am i up for the “desk maker of the year” award??

Alright… how did Dalton manage to get on here twice?? (not that he didn’t deserve it) (truck ad: load-up day)

The coroplast cityscape gave us a few problems. It needed extra reinforcement because it was sitting on the second story platform, which despite being quite solid, did move a little…just enough to make the cityscape “wave in the wind…” fortunately some of our volunteers were kind enough to come help fix (most of) that! Thanks Josh, Steve, and Chris!

The troublesomely ubiquitous elevator door hardware

It was a cool, abstract set–great design work by Mr. Jeans! However with the curved stairs, the large platform, the 40 foot wide x 19 foot high city-scape and the six elevator doors…it was time consuming to put together. Plus…I will not mention the half-unexpected mid-run strike! =)

Here is a time-lapse video I took of the main load-in day. It doesn’t show the final bit but you get the idea of the amount of work involved!

The following official Gallery 7 rehearsal/publicity photos are copyrighted and may not be altered or used for other purposes. They were taken by Dianna Lewis Photography. (Lighting by Arty Urdabayev, Directed by Sarah Green, Set Design by Sheldon Jeans, props by Evan Rachwalski, costumes by Kimberley Perkins, Hair and Makeup by Jessica Blanchard)

Anne (of Green Gables) Set Design and Build

Anne recently closed a successful run at Gallery 7 Theatre in Abbotsford in November. Set design started in the summer, and building happened in October. Below are some pictures of the model I made. The concept was simple: a block house, a tree, and a truck and flat that moved on/off in front of a sharktooth scrim.

New this year, I was asked to make a window for marketing photos as well as for patrons to take selfies with. I asked one of our volunteers, Steve, to make a sliding window, and then I build a small stand for it:

Then I started the “real” build…

My volunteer, Linda, helped a lot those first few weeks as we built and painted our way through Avonlea.

My dad, Chris, was kind enough to help with some special effects – we had some motorized wagon wheels and a motorized “sinking” boat. He also helped build a floor and a roof:

More building…

Chris, Rachel, and Dayton were a big help on a chilly paint day:

The train schedule was a fun little detail to add:

And then it was load-in day! Always appreciate help on this full day!

Here are a few photos from tech week – lighting was starting to build their cues:

Opening Night came! Can you spot the outline of Green Gables behind the scrim?

More official company photos:

Photos below are copyrighted; please do not alter them or use them for other works. Photos by Dianna Lewis Photography. (Set by Andrew Potts, Directed by Nelly Fargeon, Lighting by Ken Hildebrandt, Costumes by Vicki Bolan, Hair and Makeup by Avrey JantzKrahn, Props and some set dec by Dianna Lewis)

“Law Law Land” Set design and Build

Law Law Land was this year’s summer production by Gotta Sing Gotta Dance Vancouver, a musical theatre camp held at the JCC/NRT. It is produced once at the end of July, and once at the end of August, with different musical theatre students each time (3-show run). The July production had over 60 performers. I was contracted to design and build a versatile, lightweight, creative set, mostly working with the producer (the indefatigable Perry Ehrlich), but also the director and other choreographers.

The material of choice is 3/16 foamcore, because it is light and holds its shape reasonably well. It’s more expensive than plywood or MDF, but for this production it makes a lot of sense.

I spent a week plus in the workshop cutting, painting, and building pieces. Here are some build pictures:

I don’t have any pictures from the show (yet) but here are some rehearsal shots:

Play that Goes Wrong Set Build

The Set Build of my career… that’s how I felt about this one. It took twice as long as the average large set build. Most of the first 2 weeks was me just scratching my head and trying to figure out how to do stuff, but eventually it started to come together!

Here are some photos of the build and a couple of the finished set. Other relevant credits: Set Design by Jeff K, directed by Kerri N, Lighting by Nigel B, props by Shannon T.

This was a large undertaking for our community theatre (Gallery 7 Theatre). There were a lot of considerations, such as not damaging our venue rental, and the fact that we had to strike during tech week for a council meeting, so we had to be able to disassemble things fairly easily. The designer, Jeff, gave me some sketches on graph paper and I plugged them into Sketchup to make sure everything would fit. He also made a great model for the actors to reference.

It still fell to me, however, to make everything work. I attended several rehearsals and provided some rehearsal set pieces such as a doorframe, clock, and chaise. Stage management was terrific at communicating needs such as which way a door would open to hit an actor, how high the windowsill should be, etc.

Another challenge was the platform that falls. Gallery 7 put out a call and found a great welder, Arne L, who volunteered his time to design a steel structure using basic measurements and youtube videos that I sent him. He gave me the costs for steel and based on that we were able to request a slightly bigger set materials budget.

Here are a bunch of photos of the build!

Here is how I made the curtain bar fall – no magnets – just hinges, pins, and gravity. It worked pretty well overall, although not exactly perfectly!

I don’t want to give away too many more secrets, but here are some more things!

At some point we moved everything to a larger shop to paint, and also test some things:

And then we loaded the whole thing into the venue and held our breath while the actors started to play!

It was an intensive tech week while we figured out how to weight the platform, get all the tricks to work at once (there were 2 actor ASMs plus 3 actual ASMs), and fix all the things that kept breaking. So glad it worked well, had a successful run, and no one got (seriously) injured!! What a ride!

The following photos are official Gallery 7 rehearsal photos by Dianna Lewis. They are copyrighted and may not be edited or distributed without permission. Enjoy!

Annie Jr. Set Design and Build

VTT produced the musical Annie Jr. at the beginning of April. I was contracted to design and build the set. (Credits: Dir. K. Smith, Lights V. Bell, Costumes L. Meyers)

Our starting point was a 19-foot long set of arches that the director secured and stored at the school. This was to be the mansion and the only question was where would it go, and how would it look? I ended up making it a second level, intending to put the orchestra below, but eventually we just used the lower level for stair storage.

The NRT has limited wing space and no fly tower, so most things had to stay on the stage or be hidden just off-stage. I made 4 lightweight flats that were 5×8 feet to construct an orphanage and brick walls. They were made of foamcore, with wooden frames and legs.

That was the basic set – arches, stairs, and walls. There were many other set pieces needed for the various scene changes: starting with the beds. I was quite proud of these – I made 8 – all very lightweight and stackable. The challenge was how to keep them from sliding around when the kids were jumping from one to another; some rubber furniture feet helped.

Other fun projects/items were the laundry cart, lamppost, garbage can, fire hydrant, filing cabinet, Warbucks desk (which had to get cut lower eventually), and oval office flag.

A big challenge for me was fabric – I wanted to hide the mansion at the beginning of the show, but since it was 14 feet high, the 8-foot flats wouldn’t quite do the trick. So I made a curtain rod at the top of the mansion and hung a curtain from that, with a cityscape sewn on. It didn’t quite work for the director, but they came up with a good solution thanks to our amazing costume designer’s help, and we were able to keep the curtain. I also made some large black city skyline frames on the sides, which looked fine, but were not as shiny and shimmery under stage lights as the expensive fabric I stretched on them promised. Live and learn!

Here are a few more photos of the build/tech process:

Annie Scenes! Photos by A. Potts:

Photos by K. Balin:

All photos are copyrighted by their respective authors. Do not use or alter without permission.

Overall, it was a wonderful play. At the end, I was tired. And then I had to take away (most of) the set, and return the rentals, etc… it was time for a break.