Downtown Tucsonan - December 2007 - (Page 18)

Arts Behind the Scenes by Anne Seidler ost downtowners are familiar with “that weird industrial area” somewhere between where the armory Park neighborhood ends and the Barraza-aviation Parkway begins. on a trip to the 17th street Farmer’s Market, you may have found yourself wondering just what goes on in all those anonymous-looking warehouses. Little would one suspect that one such warehouse on 18th street houses everything from Elizabethan gowns to the scenery and props that turn an ordinary stage into a fanciful1950s pastel-colored fantasy or mad scientist’s creepy 19th-century laboratory. the arizona theatre company’s prop and set technicians work here for most of the year creating the scenery and props that bring the season’s productions to life. when the atc undertakes a new production, technical director Matt saxton receives plans from set designers all over the country. He meets with the designer for each production to determine what materials will be needed and how they fit into atc’s budget. He then creates working drawings for his team of about a dozen carpenters and painters. this team builds the sets at the 18th street scene shop, then breaks them down and transports them to the temple of Music and art on scott avenue. after the show finishes its run, the sets are sent back to the workshop and then to the Herberger theater center in Phoenix. It usually takes the workshop team about five weeks to finish a set. since the six-play atc season runs from september through May, the set builders work at the warehouse about nine months out of the year. Many find work at summer stock theatres on the west coast during the off-season. For atc’s current production, the Pajama Game, atc’s scenery department created a set done in the 1950s “Googie” style – the pastel-colored, pseudo-futuristic look associated with the Jetsons and kitschy motels. m Even after the sets are completed, there’s plenty of work to do. Paul Lucas, atc’s properties manager, explains that “the set is like an unfurnished apartment. Everything else you bring in as props.” the warehouse contains the atc’s prop shop, where everything from antique telephones to deer antlers to basketball hoops are packed into shelves from the floor to the thirty-foot ceilings. It’s like the grandest thrift store in the world. Even with such a seemingly comprehensive collection, Lucas often has to go on a hunt for the perfect prop to fit a certain theatrical niche – a working 1947 dictaphone, say, or vintage china plates. still, there are some prop needs that no amount of hours spent on eBay can satisfy, and that’s when the atc’s props artisans have to be especially innovative. the Pajama Game includes a scene in which two characters have a knife-throwing fight in their office. Lucas and his team designed a desk rigged with a spring-loaded knife that pops out to stand on end after an actor throws a fake stage knife, making it appear as if it’s landed in a desk. the musical also contains a scene in which female factory workers dance on their sewing machines. Lucas was faced with the task of not only tracking down seven 1950s industrial sewing machines, but creating stands that would be light enough to easily roll on and off stage between scenes, yet sturdy enough for their use in the choreography. this involved creating a braking system using pneumatic tubes. Just one example of the meticulous planning and fine-tuning that occurs behind the scenes of every production in order for the show’s glitter and finesse to go off smoothly and seemingly effortlessly. In addition to the sets and props, the 18th street warehouse also stores the atc’s costumes, most of which are sewn upstairs at the temple of Music and art. continued on next page a r i z o n a t h e a t r e c o m p a n y ’s s c e n e s h o p . 18 downtown tucsonan.december.07 http://www.peachprops.com http://www.vikaspawagroup.net http://www.vikaspawagroup.net

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Downtown Tucsonan - December 2007

Downtown Tucsonan Contents From the Editor Downtown Lowdown Vital Signs Holiday Shopping Downtown Live Arts Galleries Performance Events and Film Holiday Events Museums Historic Downtown Billboard Classifieds

Downtown Tucsonan - December 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.