I apologize for the long time between this post and the last. The process encompassing "The Borrowers" has been occurring at a fast and ferocious pace, so if this post seems a bit all over the place please blame it on the lack of sleep and feel free to ask questions if you are confused.
We began "Tech Week"officially on the eve of February 3rd when the stage management team moved all the parts and pieces of our show up to the stage from our rehearsal space. We were all very excited to begin working on our actual stage the next day because our rehearsal space simply doesn't allow for the same kind of movement you get when you are actually on stage. We always tape out the floor so actors know where door ways, stairs and different levels are but actually moving from level to level just isn't possible until you are on stage.
Our production of the Borrowers utilizes four different levels on stage - the main floor, a level that is 2'8" above that, another level that is 5'8" from the main floor and a platform that is 12' raised form the main floor. The reasoning behind the first three levels has to do with the idea that we are working in different scales. The Borrowers are people that are roughly 5 inches tall and live beneath the floor boards. So we are representing two different scales on stage at the same time in some places. We have 6 actors. 2 of them play human sized humans and the other four play Borrower sized humans. When they appear on stage together they are either on different levels OR the Borrower sized humans are manipulating puppets that have been fashioned after the actors - it is pretty cool to see how similar they actually look. The puppets are controlled with three sticks on each - on attached to the back of the head and one attached to each wrist. It is fascinating to watch this mixed world of actors and puppets interact. The audiences seem to be following right along. We also in the puppet world have a cricket that is roughly the size of my dog Roxy, a giant crow that stands 9 feet tall, a giant screw driver, and a giant hand.
I was pretty excited to work on this show because I had already worked with this Stage Manager and Assistant Stage Manager. As a result of our previous working experience I was giving a fair amount of responsibility. I am mostly in charge of back stage left and have a fair amount of cues that I am responsible for responding to and making sure people are in place and ready to go for them. It always feels good when people trust you to be in charge.
I figure the easiest way of explaining my responsibilities is to walk you through the show and all of the things I actually do. I begin the show back stage left and give the stage manager a confirmation of our actress being at "places" for the top of show. Then when the show starts with a lighting cue I make sure our actress makes it on stage. The next thing I do is supervise a scene change and move curtains out of the way so set pieces make it stage with out getting tangled. I then cross over to back stage right to catch various props as the actors bring them off stage to grab their puppet characters and head on stage. After that transition I put on a full body harness and wait to hand props back to actors as they transition back from puppets to actor sized Borrowers. At this point I head up to the 12' platform, harness myself to the safety cabling and load in the giant screw driver, a cane chair, writing desk and birdcage. This is where the show gets pretty crazy. The Boy is looking for where the Borrowers live and begins to pry up a floorboard with a screw driver, as he sticks a screw driver into the floor, I manipulate the giant one to look like it is coming through the roof of the Borrowers home. The boy, having discovered their home beings to hand them things - first he drops a doll house chair to them, so I drop a life size chair to them, it is a very loud thud and kind of terrifying. After the chair drop Victor (another crew member) and I ready the giant hand and when the boy lowers his hand into the floor, down comes the giant hand. There are a few more hand and screwdriver moments before the Borrowers have to escape - they have been discovered by the evil cook who thinks they are mice and wants to "smoke 'em out!" The boy wants to save them and his idea is to carry them in a clothes pin bag so we have to lower a giant clothes pin bag which the Borrowers climb into (and out the back) and then we raise that. At this point Victor and I are moving at full speed to get the clothes pin bag down from the platform, get out of harnesses and get set for our intermission change. We have roughly a minute to accomplish all of this and while this is happening back stage, the cook and her gardener are smoking out the Borrowers - enter fog effect. (Fog is always a cool effect but it took a bit to narrow down the amount we actually needed. When rehearsing/testing the machine we actually managed to set off the fire alarms - it was an exciting Tuesday morning for many of the SCR employees - oops! and to clarify I had nothing to do with this - the testing was done by the lighting/electrics department, I was manning a door making sure no one was entering or exiting the theatre space.)
Whew! We made it to our scene change over from Act 1 to Act 2. Now we have 2 minutes and 48 seconds to switch the stage over into Act 2. There are five of us that complete this change and we are all moving as fast as we can. Act 2 moves quite a bit faster and I stay put back stage left. I help move a giant boot on stage and off - the Borrowers live in it after they escape the house, I catch various puppets - the giant cricket, a giant wasp and the contraption that functions as a mustard lid boat that one of the Borrowers rides in. After the boat scene I start to get ready for the last scene of the play by setting furniture pieces in place for the actors to move them on stage. After the last scene I hold a curtain so the actors don't trip on a staircase that is close to their exit off stage after curtain call. THEN we reset everything to do another show. Tuesdays thru Thursdays we do two morning shows for school groups. Fridays we do one night show, Saturdays we do three shows and Sundays we do two shows. Which brings us to Monday - my day off.
Hopefully I'll be able to share some pictures with you when they are posted on the SCR blog or featured in reviews.
We had our first paid audience Friday night and it was so fun to hear the audience reaction to all the cool things that happen. Children laughing during a show is one of my favorite sounds. Kids our the toughest audiences because if you don't have their attention right away you probably won't have it ever. All of our audiences so far have seemed like they have really enjoyed the story being told on our stage.
I will end this post here because I am sure it is already a bit much to comprehend. We have a bit of a more relaxed schedule coming up where I hope to be able to post some pictures I've taken and also next Thursday I get to go see a play up in L.A. so I'll be sure to report on that. HAPPY MONDAY!!
Feb 13, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
WOW! I know The Borrowers was a popular book sometime along about the time my offspring were reading youth books, but I have never read it. HOWEVER, I got a pretty good idea of what it is about by your excellent description. And what a lot of staging it does take. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Love, Grandma Lee
ReplyDelete