Tibbits Opera House: July 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

The Goodbye Girl's Toughest Costumes!

Greetings Tibbit's Fans!
This is Melissa Swanson, costume designer for Room Service and The Bop She Bops. Today I wanted to share with you the toughest challenge we costumers had while constructing for our current show, The Goodbye Girl. This challege was, of course, the Giant Food Costumes! For those of you who have seen our production, I am referring to the dancing rib-eye steak, french fries, and ice cream cone.

Em Rossi, the designer for The Goodbye Girl, developed a strategy to construct these mascots out of ordinary foam mattress pads, headliner foam, a bit of wire, and lots and lots of hot melt glue.

Pictured here is the inside of the ice cream. I built a wire skeleton for the ice cream scoop in order to keep its shape while Katie Lemos was dancing in it.

This process kept us stuck inside these costumes for many hours while gluing each piece together.

After gluing everything together we spent a day in a mist of spray paint behind the opera house.

Lastly, we added the finishing details with some acrylic paints, and lots of glitter.

All three of us built one. Em Rossi made the fries, while Kat Reid (popcorn designer) built the rib-eye, and I tackled the delicious ice cream cone.

So far in the season these costumes were the toughest to build, and yet the most fun. But perhaps not for our diets, considering they caused many ice cream and french fry cravings (not so-much for raw meat).

If you have not seen these costumes in action there are still three more performances; tonight, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm.

The next show will be The Bop She Bops, designed by me. Here is a sneak peak of the costumes for Tibbits last summer performance.

A Behind-The-Scenes look at Goodbye Girl - Making The Lights on Broadway

Hello! My name is Kat Lanphear, and this season I'm serving as the Mainstage Lighting Designer for Tibbits Opera House. I just wanted to give our readers a quick look at the magic behind some of the effects in our shows, particularly The Goodbye Girl.

For those of you who have seen the show, you probably noticed Broadway posters that flew in and out during certain scenes. One of my jobs as lighting designer was not only to make sure that the audience could see the set, but also add a little bit of "lighting magic" to the signs. Working in collaboration with Lex van Blommestien (the scenic designer), we were able to make the Majestic Theatre sign light up, as well as create chasing lights around the 42nd Street sign.

The original concept for how to light the Majestic sign was to drill a series of holes in the middle of the sign to spell out the letters, and then use a lighting instrument directly behind the sign to shine light through the holes. However, this idea had to be scrapped because the look of the sign was being comprimised - it just didn't look as crisp and clean as Lex wanted it to. After a talk about other options, the two of us decided our best bet would be to use rope light to spell out the letters. Not only did using rope light achieve a better look than drilling holes in the sign, but it was also a cheap alternative - we had an abundance of rope light from a production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas a few years ago (if you happened to see that production three years ago, you may remember the rope light-surrounded runway - yes, we recycle!).

After deciding on a solution, the Master Electrician (Ben Paciorkowski) set to work installing the rope light. The picture on the left is the final product. It took about two hours of drilling small holes to feed rope light through, and installing clips to help create and shape the letters. Pretty simple, but a good look for the show.

While Ben worked on that sign, I was working across the scene shop on the 42nd Street sign.

Early on in the process, I'd expressed to Director Brian Sage that I'd like to be able to do a chasing light effect on one on the signs. Most people have seen a chasing effect before - think about theatre marquee signs where the lights seem to "chase" each other around in a circle. A chase effect is easy to create, as it's really just a simple trick of the eye; what you really see in a chase effect is one light turning on, then the one next to it, then the one after it, over and over again in a loop of three. While it looks like the lights "chase" around a sign, it's really just every third light being turned on in a sequence.

To do this, I needed to wire 3 sets of 8 lamp bases to the sign - a total of 24 lights. This way, I could turn on one set of lights at a time. I also needed to be able to "hide" the wires so that the sign looked clean. To complete this project took me over three hours. Not only did I need to attach and wire bases to the sign, but I also needed to make sure I didn't get "lost" in my wiring. One wrong end of a wire attached to the wrong base could have cost me a lot of extra time to go back and fix everything. In the picture, you can see band-aids on my fingers; wiring the sign caused a lot of blisters that day! However, in the end all of the lights worked, and I was able to program multiple chase sequences for musical numbers in The Goodbye Girl. Check out the finished product below!

If you haven't had the opportunity yet, make sure to check out our production of The Goodbye Girl before it closes on Saturday, August 2nd! I promise you that it will be a great time, and you will be able to tell all of your friends how they made the lights on Broadway. =)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Bop She Bops!!!

Everyone should prepare to tap their toes and remember classic songs from the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. The Bop She Bops will bring fun, laughs, and maybe even a few tears through fantastic songs from this exciting era.

Right now we are just in the beginning stages of rehearsal for the show. My name is Tiffany Wiesend and I am one of the Bop She Bops ladies, along with Brynn Curry, and Katie Lemos. We are so excited to have the honor of performing these terrific tunes. Eric Silvertree is also involved, playing my father in the show, and our biggest fan and greatest supporter. We're having a ball in rehearsals getting to know these songs!

Take a minute and get a sneak peek in the rehearsal process with our secret rehearsal cam below! :)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Room Service Giveaway

Hello again, faithful readers. This is Charles. I hope by now we have tantalized you into seeing Room Service, the classic Broadway farce now playing at the Tibbits. If you need a little more encouragement, how about a a free ticket?

That's right we are offering a buy-one-get-one-free incentive ONLY to the readers of this blog. It is good only for Saturday night, July 19th. That's closing night of the show where the laughter is bringing down the house.

You must mention the code: RSBlog#1. Since we are doing this at the last minute, you will need to call the Box Office at 517-278-6029 as it is not set up in the online ticketing program.

I would love to see how many readers we have--and rather we have piqued your interest with Eric's behind the scenes look at putting up the show. See you there!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Set Design and Little Women

The Set for Little Women

This is Charles. While Little Women closed a week ago, I thought our audience might like to hear about (and look at) this highly innovative set.

Here is Set Designer Lex van Blommestein talking about his first impressions for the concept of the set:

"When I first read the script for Little Women I realized that it is not as simplistic as some musicals. There is a rich story, that involves other fantastic stories wrapped within. I had to develop a visual idea that allowed for an interesting way to portray the rich and embellished tales that are spinning in Jo March's head. In the end, the decision became clear... bring it back to the story(ies). I had to keep the fantasy alive and interesting without making it seem like it was being acted. Using a semi-transparent material on the walls allowed for the hazy dream like stories of Jo's head to be played, while in front of the walls the reality of the musical can come to life."

These first three images are the preliminary sketches of how the set might work.

Once the set was okayed by Ray Gabica (the director), Lex and the Technical Director, Chuck Griffin, sat down to figure out what kind of materials could be used that would give the set the look Lex wanted but be within the budget for summer theatre. Scrim, the material that allows light through it when lit from the back and opaque when lit from the front, is very expensive.

Lex and Chuck decided to use a much more cost effective cheese cloth that had many of the same properties. It is never as opaque, but since we never had to see a "realistic" wall, it would work well--always giving a slightly ghostly feel to the room. Once the frame was built, the cloth was stretched over it and sized with a mixture of water and glue. Chuck demonstrates the look of the raw flat.

Next, it was Lex's turn to paint. Since the whole play is composed of Jo thinking back over her life, he opted to see fragments of the wall, not a hyper realistic look. Notice how the wall paper stencil fades in and out over the flat. The stencil is cut by hand and used to get the regulated pattern of the wallpaper. In the attic it is a suggestion of the lath showing through the plaster. For the floor he painted large pages of manuscript.

Ray wanted the show to always remind us of Louisa Alcott's (and, hence Jo's) literary roots. Great panels looking like books on a shelf were used to hide the house and provide other locations. Here Charlie Cochran and Chuck hold up the frame before it is covered with regular muslin.

Here is one completed and ready to go to the paint area. The workshop is located in the same building as the paint shop. Our property storage is there, too. The building is located about half a mile from the theatre. It's very convenient---until you need to transport the set to the theatre in the rain.

The platformed area helped define where we were at any given moment in the musical. The highest area was the attic. A sitting room area was to the left that could double in both the house and the boarding house. And an entrance/passageway was to the right of the attic. Here the platforms are just built and put in place for the first time at the scene shop.

Th Designer and Scenic Artist, Lex van Blommestein with the Little Women wallpaper stencil. Lex guesses he spent 55 hours painting the walls, platforms and floor.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Room Service Performance, Shows One and Two

The rehearsal process is over now, and today we hit the stage and performed for an audience for the first time - and the second time. Today was a double run, meaning we had both a 2pm matinée and an 8pm evening performance. Our volunteer ushers had their work cut out for them preparing enough program flyers for the day.

First, though, for the morning session. I'm also performing in The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop, part of the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for children. We have two more shows Friday and Saturday morning, but we haven't done the show since last week. To refresh our memories - and make sure that the set changeover from Little Women to Room Service hasn't created any problems for us - we had a brush-up rehearsal Thursday morning. It went great, and we'll have no problems re-opening the show tomorrow.

On to the afternoon. The stage manager of a show determines what time the cast is due to report in for a performance. That check-in time is referred to as call. Call times vary with the needs of the show. If the whole cast is in very elaborate costumes, or special makeup, or in a musical that requires time to warm up the voice, call may be an hour or more before the curtain goes up. Room Service has fewer pre-show demands on the actors, so Justin set our call at half an hour.

We're free to show up early, of course, and an actor who doesn't appear on stage until late in the show may be given a call time later than the rest of the cast. We each, by now, have a pretty good idea how long we personally will need to get ready, and we each have different ways of using the time. Some actors prefer to arrive early and get ready long before curtain time, then spend the extra time relaxing in the dressing room or greenroom. Some actors would rather get everything done just in time to hit the stage, because extra time spent waiting makes them nervous and jittery.

Either way, we're kept on track by Justin, who makes regular announcements of the time remaining before the show begins. One important timing mark comes just under a half-hour before curtain, when we hear that the house is open - meaning the ushers have begun showing the audience to their seats in the auditorium. The final announcement comes at two minutes to curtain time, when the stage manager calls us to take our places for the beginning of the show.

Then the house lights go dark, the stage lights come on, the curtain rises - and we begin. I'll talk more about what goes on backstage during a performance in later reports. Today, I'd like to tell you about some of our friends in the community of Coldwater, Michigan, and the special things they did for us on opening day.

The good folks at the United Methodist Church have a kind spot in their hearts for the Tibbits company, and on the days when we have two back-to-back performances they take special care of us by having the whole company over for dinner between shows. After washing off the makeup and changing back into our own clothes, we walked three blocks over to the church, where they had a great buffet with chicken casserole, tacos, rolls, salad, fresh fruit, iced tea, orange juice, coffee and dessert laid out for us. They've hosted meals for us on double-run days for many years now, and besides being grateful for the food, those of us who return to the Tibbits season after season are always happy to see them again. It's a delightful time spent catching up with friends. In the photo above, we raise our glasses to United Methodist volunteers Linda Luce, Diane Godfrey, MaryAnne Bair, Jerry Welborn, Carol Tinervia, and Marianne Hodson. Thanks again for your love and support!

We're just as grateful to the Northwoods Coffee Shop and owner Michelle Milnes, who started a new tradition this year. On opening nights, Northwoods re-opens late after the show, and we have the chance to relax and mingle with some of the folks who've just seen us on stage. It's wonderful to be able to meet and chat with the audience in such a pretty and comfortable place, and both the coffee and the food are excellent. Many of us at Tibbets make Northwoods a regular stop during the day, and the opening night receptions are a special treat - Michelle gave us each a beverage and dessert of our choice on the house!

As for the shows themselves, we couldn't be more pleased with how much the audiences enjoyed themselves. A lot is said about how much actors like the sound of applause, but there's one thing we love even more - the sound of a whole houseful of people helpless with laughter. Our double run on opening day left us very tired, but very very happy. We hope you'll come down and share the fun!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Eleven

Well, our final dress rehearsal is over. All the last-minute details have been seen to, all the choices have been made, everything about the show - from the sets to the props to the costumes to the lines to the blocking to the bowl of fruit snacks backstage to keep our energy up - are ready.

Other than to thank all of you for joining me backstage by reading the blog, there's little left to say before the curtain goes up. I'll be back with more reports as the show continues its run, but for now I'll leave you with a little gallery of photographs taken during one of our final pre-dress rehearsals by my partner, Rhett Ramirez. Hope to see you at the show!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Ten

Prior Reports:
Day 1 - Sunday, 29 June: Read-Through and Act One Blocking
Day 2 - Monday, 30 June: Act Two and Act Three Blocking
Day 3 - Tuesday, 1 July: Act Three Blocking, Publicity, and Working Act One
Day 4 - Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast
Day 5 - Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 6 - Friday, 4 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 7 - Saturday, 5 July: Work Session and Designer's Run
Day 8 - Sunday, 6 July: Load-In*, Hang and Focus, and Running Lines
*Including one-minute timelapse video of the set going up!
Day 9 - Monday, 7 July: Costumes, Props, and Adjusting to the Stage

Tuesday, 8 July: Stage Management, Box Office, and Dress Rehearsal

Hi again! I'm Eric Silvertree, a member of the cast of Room Service, the rollicking farce opening Thursday, 10 July at the historic Tibbits Opera House in Coldwater, Michigan.

Time is speeding by as the show gets ever closer to opening. During the morning session, the technical crew - set, lights, props and costumes - were hard at work finalizing all the details, from repairing the facing on a step that one of us accidentally kicked in, to finishing a hat for one of the ladies, to finding the right mix of Coca-Cola and 7-Up to simulate champagne.

The afternoon session was a run without costumes (except for garments changed on stage as part of the show) and in the evening we had another full dress rehearsal. Yesterday, our biggest concern was adjusting to the move from the rehearsal space to the stage. Today, we were back to concentrating on our acting, polishing our performances, and establishing our personal routines for the show. We and the crew all rely on each other backstage to keep things running smoothly. For example, Robert helps Whitney and Sarah by remaking the beds during the first intermission, Brian and Steve help J.R. with a tricky little bit of costuming before he makes a re-entrance, and I help John maneuver the breakfast cart into place so when the door opens, he can wheel it right on.

You've caught sight of the stage management staff here and there in previous posts, but let's get to know them a little better.

In front is Justin Carroll, the production stage manager. Justin started working with Tibbits Summer Theatre five years ago as an assistant, and is now the man in charge when the show goes live and the director turns over control to stage management. Justin is working toward a degree in theatre technology and design at Central Washington University.

Behind him is Whitney Shouse. Whitney is the assistant stage manager for mainstage shows, and serves as primary stage manager for the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for young audiences. Whitney is a theatre major at Hanover College in Indiana.

At the lighting control console in back is Ben Paciorkowski, the master electrician. From this nest off to the side of the stage, Ben and Whitney perform the technical aspects of the show - raising the curtain, ringing the telephone on the set, controlling the lights on stage and in the auditorium - while Justin gives them their cues from his post in a booth behind the last row of seats in the balcony. Justin, Whitney, and Ben are in constant communication by headset microphone, and Justin also makes announcements to the actors thorough speakers in the dressing rooms.

We also have dedicated folks keeping things going at the Tibbits year-round. Joan Spaulding is the darling lady in charge of keeping things tidy throughout the building. Cleaning our individual dressing room spaces is each actor's responsibility, but then there's the auditorium, the lobby, the downstairs intermission space with art gallery and gift shop…

Dave Brown is the house technical director, making sure the lights and fans work for us on both floors of dressing rooms, for instance, as well as working with the community theater and other performance groups that use the opera house when Tibbits Summer Theatre is not in season. I never know when I'm going to come across either Joan or Dave when I zip through the place at random odd hours, and Joanie always has a sweet smile and a laugh for me, and Dave's always ready with a new joke.

There are a lot of people involved in mounting a production - not just the actors you see strutting their stuff in the light. We all work hard to bring the show together - and by now, I hope you're as eager to see the production as we are to present it. Here are the friendly people to talk to for tickets!

That's box office manager Jo Summitt on the left, with assistant manager Vanessa Bloom on the right. In the second photo are Shannon McKinney and Sam Haberl.

They'll be very happy to reserve your seats - either in person, or at 517.287.6029. The box office is open from 10am to 5pm every weekday, 9am to 4pm on Saturdays, plus at 7pm (an hour before curtain time) on all dates with evening shows. Room Service opens on Thursday with two shows - a matinée at 2pm and an evening performance at 8pm. We continue Friday and Saturday at 8pm both nights. The following week, we re-open on Wednesday with a 2pm matinée, then complete the run with 8pm shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have our final rehearsal before we open the doors and bring up the curtain - and your backstage pass with me on the blog will go on all through the run of the show. More coming soon!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Nine

I'm sure you noticed some props and furniture pieces gradually replacing the folding chairs that stood in for the real things during rehearsals at the Jefferson Elementary School gym. On Monday, however, we got our hands on all the genuine articles we'll be using in the show. Minor additions and changes will continue right up to the final rehearsal, but all the departments try to make sure that the technical aspects of the show are as close to finished as possible for the first on-stage run.

Properties master Sarah Simrau had her work cut out for her - there are three and a half pages of fine print on the last pages of the script, listing the props called for in the action of the play - and none of them are allowed to look as though they were manufactured in the twenty-first century. Period suitcases, doctor's bag, dinnerware, linen and towels, a typewriter in a carrying case - all have to be either found, made, or modified from items in the Tibbits stock.

It all looks like a pile of mess as it's brought in, but Sarah and assistant stage manager Whitney Shouse quickly get things organized. Props are either pre-set in the right locations on the set or laid out on tables backstage, with a specific place for each prop, so that we actors always know exactly where everything is and can easily grab what we need and get back on stage.

Lights and set also have some details to attend to, like wiring the lighted sconces attached to the wall above the side tables by the beds. Here you can see Whitney and master electrician Ben Paciorkowski hooking up power to a bell ringer that has the right sound for a 1930's telephone and can be controlled from the light operator's station.

During the morning session, while the crew was busy working on the stage, the actors met in the greenroom. Nobody can agree on why the room set aside for actors to relax offstage as they're waiting to go on is called the greenroom, but it's been called that since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century. Ours is down a flight of stairs from the door opening onto the back of the stage, and it's the perfect spot for the whole cast to go through the dialogue of the whole show from beginning to end, talking our way through the script one last time before we start doing it on a set with stairsteps and doors and furniture and props in our hands.

After lunch, we walked around on the set for a few minutes to get used to the space, and then we began our first onstage run-through. We've been rehearsing on a flat floor without walls up until now, pretending to be holding papers and dishes and things, so we were all a little distracted the first time through, and kept forgetting our lines. That's not a problem - the director expects it to happen, and so do we. When an actor goes blank in rehearsal, he or she doesn't (and shouldn't) waste time apologizing for it. Instead, we just shout "Line!" Someone - usually Justin Carroll, the stage manager - has a script right in front of him, ready to feed us a few words to get us back on track. There comes a point, of course, when we're expected to recover from problems on our own (since we can't shout "Line!" during a performance) but that point doesn't come until we've had a chance to get used to the stage.

For the evening session, we added costumes to the mix. We've paid individual visits to the costume shop for fittings at various times during the last week, but this was our first time wearing them for a dress rehearsal, or rehearsal in costume. Getting used to our clothes, and when we change them for different scenes, is another distraction, but we all settled in very quickly. In fact, I think I was the only one who called "Line!" during the evening dress.

Costuming a show set in the 1930's - or any other historical period - presents the same challenges as gathering props. All the garments have to have to be in the right style, with no obvious color or fabric choices from the wrong era. Some of the clothes are simply pulled from the Tibbits inventory, and some are constructed from scratch. Let's meet the costumers!

In front is Melissa Swanson, the designer for Room Service. Behind Melissa is Kathleen Reid, and behind Kathleen is Em Rossi. Kathleen recently earned her BFA at the University of Central Missouri, and Em is working toward her MFA at Wayne State University. They all share the work as stitchers for every show, but they divide the design responsibilities up. Em designed Little Women, which just closed, and is working on the upcoming show The Goodbye Girl, which follows Room Service. Melissa will design again for The Bop She Bops, and Kathleen is in charge of all the shows in the Popcorn Theatre series for children.

Now that we're on the stage, and into the dress rehearsal phase, we're almost ready to open. Tuesday and Wednesday will be our time to work out the last of our hesitations and uncertainties as we prepare to open the show to the public on Thursday. I'll talk to you again soon!