Guys and Dolls 2004

Guys and Dolls was another fun one for Maddie. Puck and I did a little painting one the set and I helped out with costumes a little bit.

Maddie had the idea of putting a tiny monkey (ala King Kong) on top of the Empire State Building.

She got a big kick out of that one. It was hers and the tech directors little joke

Once Upon Camelot 2004

Once Upon Camelot 2004

Our first attempt at making papier mache on a big scale. We learned a great deal in the process. The trees turned out pretty good and the next time we made trees they were quite a bit better. This show had living trees as well and those costumes were fun. I still have them stored up in my attic costume shop. The girls had a rough time walking in them, but I thought they were cute

Once Upon Camelot 2004

Every three years or so the school does an all school unit on the Renaissance. We try to coordinate the play to go with the topic and so end up with a few castles :) This was a fun show and had some crazy characters. It even had human rocks. They had lines so it wasn't totally awful playing a rock in Middle School. I split the jester into twins so two girls could have a part and they did a wonderful job.

Nicholas Nickleby 2003

Maddie's first High School play and I adapted a velvet umpire waisted dress for her character of Fanny Squeers... She also played Miss Snivilichee, one of the theatrical troupe. I had a Queen of Hearts costume that a dear friend had whipped up for a Halloween party of ours. He had made the thing in only one day and it was fabulous. Of course I had to take it in quite a bit to get it to fit tiny Maddie. The same costume has been used for both Alice in Wonderland plays for the Queen so it has gotten some good use

The Birds 2003

Puck built a beautiful set. It was the tallest set to date before he built Jabberwock. My biggest challenge were the magic stalks that had to grow on the stage. It took a while to figure out how to build them so they could be hidden until they needed to grow. That is where is is helpful to live with the tech director :)

Whenever they appeared they got a great "Awwwwwww" from the audience

I hope we can do that play again. I have those magic bean stalks stored away for safe keeping just in case

The Birds 2003 The Masks

This was my favorite play that we ever put on. It was not a favorite with the kids however and I really never understood why. the costumes were fun, the makeup was fun. I guess it was a little too highbrow for them.

Anyhow it called for a narrator which I transformed into a Greek Chorus. It was mainly sixthgrade students. They each created their own half mask. I wanted them to be able to speak and be heard, but at the same time work and look like a group... a single unity telling the story of the play. They carried tall staffs and each entrance they put another thing into their staffs to represents the scene... we had snow and sun and rain and wind and finally birds

Sherlock Holmes 2002

Sherlock Holmes & the Case of Moriarity's Meanacing Mayhem







I added a Busker scene to this show to cover up a scene change. The boy playing the banjo was a guitar player and I taught him how to play a few chords on the banjo for the scene. Maddie played the other part of the duo. It also allowed us to throw in quite a few more characters as city people. They sang "Ive got a loverly bunch of coconuts"

He is playing my dad's old banjo. There was no way I was loaning out mine!

Again there is a lot of our furniture on the stage including the bookcase which has almost as big a resume as any of our actors.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 2001

The very first show ever put on in our theater and the first Middle School play after 7 years.

I just volunteered to help out and dragged Puck kicking and screaming into designing the set. We had absolutely no budget and had to beg borrow and steal to get paint and set decorations. All in all it turned out pretty well