Following up on yesterday’s Follies discussion, I wanted to share some shots I took inside the theatre.
Follies was inspired by this iconic photo of Gloria Swanson taken inside the Roxy Cinema in ruins as it was being torn down.
Like the Swanson photo, Follies takes place inside a theatre about to be torn down. But The Marquis Theatre is a big fancy 35-year-young theatre in pristine condition. (Ironically, the construction of the Marquis involved tearing down five other theatres.)
The stage certainly looked in ruins. The floorboards looked loose, the proscenium was falling apart, indeed everything looked like it was minutes from turning into dust.
But Derek McLane’s design also extends into the audience. Anything “beautiful” about the auditorium is covered in dull drab drapes. House lighting is replaced by bare exposed work lights.
Food for thought – what play are you working on and how can you modify your theatre to serve the play?
We were walking around New York and came across the neatest decorations for telephone/light/sign poles. The poles were covered with large coloured cable ties.
I think that this would work quite nicely as a cheap and elegant way of representing trees in the theatre. Get a pole, wrap coloured cable ties around it and – voila! – a stylishly simple tree! A Midsummer Night’s Dream, anyone? As You Like It? What other plays could use a few trees?
Upon further research, it turns out that what I saw was a public art project by Animus Arts Collective. Learn more about the project (and see more photos) here.
by:
Craig Mason on
January 17th, 2012 | No Replies
We’re back from a whirlwind theatre trip to New York and have a whole week of blog posts and videos about the trip.
The second show holds the distinction of having one of the longest titles in theatrical history – The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill Volume 1: Early Plays/Lost Plays.
The text of the show was comprised entirely of stage directions from Eugene O’Neill’s plays. For example:
Rose Thomas, a dark-haired young woman looking thirty but really only twenty-two, is discovered sitting on the chair smoking a cheap Virginia cigarette. An empty beer bottle and a dirty glass stand on the table beside her. Her hat, a gaudy, cheap affair with a scraggy, imitation plume, is also on the table. Rose is dressed in the tawdry extreme of fashion. She has earrings in her ears, bracelets on both wrists, and a quantity of rings—none of them genuine. Her face is that of a person in an advanced stage of consumption —deathly pale with hollows in under the eyes, which are wild and feverish. Her attitude is one of the deepest dejection. When she glances over at the bed, however, her expression grows tenderly maternal. From time to time she coughs—a harsh, hacking cough that shakes her whole body. After these spells she raises her handkerchief to her lips—then glances at it fearfully.
by:
Lindsay Price on
January 16th, 2012 | No Replies
Use these pictures to jump start your writing. For each picture write a monologue or scene inspired by what you see. Not sure now to start? Write a monologue from the perspective of the person taking the picture. Write a monologue from the perspective of the object in the picture like the battered umbrella.
Write the scene that takes place the moment before the picture is snapped, or the moment after. A couple of the pictures involve strange signs, like the kitchen and footwear store, (who decided to sell those those things together?)- write the scene that lead to the posting of the signs.
Write something completely unrealistic and fantasy inspired that explains the picture. The possibilities are endless….
by:
Lindsay Price on
January 14th, 2012 | 2 Replies
I come across a lot of people who like to talk about their creative projects. They like to talk about their plans, their goals, how great their plans and goals are going to be. They talk…. a lot. Yes it can be good to verbalize what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. But many of these folks talk about the doing and yet don’t actually do anything. Sometimes I get tired hearing about projects to be, instead of seeing those projects come to fruition.
It’s a trap to talk about doing more so than participating in the act of doing. If you’re talking, it makes you think that something is happening. That talking is part of the process. Which it can be, sure. But the fact of the matter is that the words coming out of your mouth go into the ether and vanish. It’s the words on the page, or the paint on the canvas, or the dance through your feet that matter. The doing is what makes you an artist, in whatever genre you enjoy. The talking about the doing does not make you better at your craft.
And further to this, there are those who talk so much about how they can’t do something (not enough time, no ideas, not good enough, blah, blah, blah) I’m sure they can talk themselves out of anything. There seem to be a million and one reasons why something can’t be done.
I often tell student writers the only major difference between those who write for a living and those who don’t, is that a professional writer starts writing and doesn’t stop. They are engaged in the doing, every day. Sometimes they don’t do it well, sometimes they only do for a few moments. But that doesn’t matter, there’s no time limit on the doing. It’s all part of being an artist. Nothing is perfect all the time, nothing is perfect the first time out of the gate. The important thing is to never stop the doing.
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I come across a lot of people who like to talk about their creative projects. They like to talk about their plans, their goals, how great their plans and goals are going to be. They talk…. a lot. Yes it can be good to verbalize what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. But many of these folks talk about the doing and yet don’t actually do anything. Sometimes I get tired hearing about projects to be, instead of seeing those projects come to fruition.
