I sat in the back yard this afternoon, soaking up the lovely weather and reading through the State STAR Student resumés and applications. Once again, a stunning group of students. We will interview them on Wednesday and pick one as the State STAR, often a tricky proposition as you can imagine.

I also took a hard look at what we accomplished yesterday at the set crew for William Blake’s Inn. Here’s what we still need to do in the next seven days, with the items in green being the ones I think I can get done before Friday:

WALLS

• reinforce breaks in edges with slices of “corner cardboard”; attach with box rivets
• finish painting “woodwork”
• glue chair rails to walls
• paint fireplace panel with architectural detail
• cut final fireplace opening
• hang black fabric on fireplace opening
• paint architectural detail on other walls

SUNFLOWER TEA SET

• cut out cup handles (cardboard)
• cut out pot handles (cardboard)
• cut out tray
• paper maché tray
• shape cups
• shape pot
• attach cup handles
• attach pot handle
• paint cups
• paint pot
• paint tray

TURTLES

• make turtle heads, feet (cardboard)
• shape turtles
• paint turtles
• cut panes
• glue topaz plastic (spray with hairspray/starch?)
• cut out turtle bases (x3)
• cut out turtle wheels (x3)
• cut dowels for axles (x3)
• make axel mounts (duct tape: create ring of duct tape, tape ring to base) (x3)
• mount lights to base (x3)
• mount turtle to base (x3)
• string turtles

SUNFLOWER SUITCASES

• assemble frames
• cut out cardboard faces
• cut rope for handles
• drill holes for handles in top center brace
• mount faces
• attach handles
• paint

TEA TABLE

• We need just to find a small table and drape something over it.

TOAST HEAD BANNERS

• drill holes 2 ft up: 1/2” hole
• insert 12” tube through hole
• punch holes in top fabric (to avoid drill wrap!)
• drill holes in tops: L, R, C
• nsert screweye in top of pole
• mount tops: bolt one banner, insert C bolt through eye, bolt other banner (nuts on either side of banner top)
• screweye on ends of bottoms
• wire bottoms through tube
• paint banners

TOAST HEAD BAND INSTRUMENTS

• cut out gong, beater
• paint gong, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, drum sticks (5)
• mount straps on bass drum, snare drum

TOAST HEADS

• cut head holes in boards
• cut foam: f/b = 12×14; sides = 121×11 (x10)
• cut construction paper faces: f/b = 12×14; sides = 12×13
• glue toast to construction paper
• assemble foam panels in square
• measure individual Toast Head, position head piece in foam block
• attach foam to head piece
• cut eye slit

SNOW DRIFTS

• cut 2×2 (12)
• mount front face to 2×2, flush to floor
• mount bottom to 2×2, flush with front face
• paint front white
• paint “inside” green w/ flowers
• add felt sliders to bottom

ANGEL COSTUME

• cut backpack up
• cut tabs for wings
• cut out wings (cardboard)
• paint wings (reddish phalanges; blue feathers)
• attach wings to tabs
• build angel gown (velcro slits in back to pull down over wings) [Carol Lee]
  

KING OF CATS VEST [Carol Lee]

• draft vest pattern to fit Dale (or buy one)
• cut out vest: purple shag for front; gold lamé for back
• sew vest

If you’d like to help, email me. If you’d like your personal copy of this punchlist, click here.

In addition to these items, I personally have to re-record most of the songs, i.e., bring them up in the new version of Finale and create new sound files from them. With any luck, my new laptop will be able to make the AIFF files without any hiccups (as currently exist in Milky Way and Postcard, to name two.)

Then I have to import those AIFF files into Final Cut Express and create a video for each song, with at least the lyrics and hopefully with images we’ve been creating in workshop since January. I have three done (Prologue through Wonderful Car). That’s a lot still to do.

I have to burn the DVD of all those videos, or rather the one long, 45-minute video, which we can pause between songs.

I have to create the program for the May 3 performance, get that to the printer, and get it picked up.

This is not counting the workshop/rehearsal Wednesday night, nor is it counting my involvement as chair of the State STAR Student event, which will devour Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon/nights.

And it’s not counting the Bjork swan dress I have to make before May 4.

Excelsior.

We met for set crew at my house at 10:00 this morning, and by the time we finished, we got at least most of the items on our list started, although none of them were finished. We were hampered by not having a large enough crew, but those of us in attendance worked hard.

We started with the paper maché, since it had to dry before anything else could be done to it. Here we are starting the teacups and turtles:

Here’s Marc working on his turtle later:

We also got the walls started, since we had to wallpaper them. The first step was to reinforce the edges so that they would flap over. We used some extremely sturdy corner packaging, originally used in shipping window blinds. Here are Molly and Carol Lee getting ready to cut one with a hacksaw:

Marc and I took turns wallpapering the walls.

Here’s one that’s done:

Mary Frances painted the edge reinforcements brown, sort of a wood-looking effect. She also painted the chair railings which we will have to attach later:

Ginny cut out the headpieces for the Toast Heads:

Carol Lee and I worked on the Toast Head’s banners, which we hung on the fence to dry:

Galen measured out the lumber for the Sunflowers’ suitcases:

We also got the snowdrifts and the Toast Heads’ instruments cut out of the cardboard.

So lots got started, but nothing got finished. I’ll assess all of that tomorrow.

After we exhausted ourselves with set crew, we had a cookout and just relaxed around a fire in the backyard. The weather was beautiful all day, and the evening was the same.

I spent three hours this afternoon shopping for all the materials we’ll need to build the walls, the toast heads, the turtles, the tea set, etc., etc.

At my very last stop, Frugal Fabrics for foam, I found black and white fabric that will serve for the Wise Cow’s boa/stole. I wasn’t looking for it, but there it was.

This shopping experience was a little bittersweet in that it was exciting to be this close to getting the Inn turned into reality, but it brought back the memories of all those years keeping the theatre afloat with my money. I had sworn that I was not going to pay for this production, and I’m not. If no one steps forward after May 3 to take the role of producer, i.e., fundraiser, then it dies. Well, the idea of a premiere in Newnan dies. I intend to pursue the Inn in other places if Newnan can’t step up to the plate.

In attendance: Dale, Marc, Mary Frances, Molley, Laura, Melissa, and Carol Lee. We also had MMH Galen, Toast Head Maggie and Hedgehogs Taylor, Kennedy, Chiara, Preston, and Travis.

First up were the Hedgehogs. Heavens to betsy, are these cute critters!

This last one is of us all double-checking what hedgehog ears look like on my laptop. We decided to try knit caps with ears and noses attached to them, over their eggshell foam.

We worked bit by bit, starting with the hedgehog choreography and working our way backwards through the song. Eventually we added some “walls” and a fireplace for the hedgehogs to come bursting out of. We added Toast Heads. We added the Gang. I think it’s all going to be very merry, especially if we can get the Gang to the level that they actually look precise.

The hedgehogs are not very precise. We’ll work on that, but of course that is not the point. They’re there for cuteness.

They were troupers: they focused on what we needed to focus on, they hit their marks more often than not, and I think by the time we get to May 3, they’re going to be absolutely awesome.

After we sent them home, then we worked on Toast Head choreography. That was a lot shorter. In fact, it surprised me how little time it took to get that done. Of course, it takes forever to develop the choreography; transferring to real dancers (like Molly and Maggie) takes no time at all.

Finally, Galen arrived from his Music Man rehearsal, and we worked on the Marmalade Man’s stuff. I chatted a bit about how I had come to view the MM as a disruptive force in the Inn: he shows up, and things just get stirred up. He has that power, to straighten roads, to command the Gang to fall in for close order drill, to summon up hedgehogs, to change winter to spring. And yet when he’s done, things are better.

It’s sort of like Wallace Stevens’ image of the creative mind/act as a garden: sometimes you have to scrape it clean and start over. That’s the function of the MM, to make us all reexamine the status quo.

This is reflected in his choreography, all free and light and arms and legs and entrechats, while his Toast Heads are starched flat and the Gang marches in order.

Finally we tried to put it all together. It may be too much, but we’ll see next week.

Jonathan Hickman was there, shooting video for a small documentary/trailer for the May 3 thing. This is good.

In other news, I met with Don Nixon at the Centre, and he’s on board for the 2008 premiere. There’s some exciting stuff going on out there, folks.

Also, Ginny got the invitations printed, folded, and stuffed. Excelsior!

Another workshop night, again an intensive rehearsal kind of thing. Dale, Marc, Carol Lee, Melissa, and Denise in attendance, with Mary Frances joining us later.

Carol Lee had finished the sunflowers, so we were able to work on getting the sunflower waltz shaped up.

Dance is funny to write about, because we followed the same process of successive approximation we’ve always followed, but it’s all movement instead of drawings and discussion. I mean, I can say that we backed up the Big Bang and replicated it above the Two Sunflowers with the Field of Flowers, but is any of that going to make sense?

Or that we cut the second run across from the inverted V and went straight into the Field of Flowers? Or that we didn’t have time for the weave-through heading into the Tableau, so we just did the Big Bang, one waltz turn, and then ran into a pas de chat and spiked the Tableau?

See what I mean?

Eventually, we snagged Molly Honea and two dancer friends, so we had five dancers and ten sunflowers. We laid our choreography on them and lo, it worked! Super cool!

I had to come home and write it all down before I forgot.

Problems with the invitation: we just can’t get the screened sunflower right, and now we have 500 invitations that cannot be read. ::sigh::

Lots of creativity today. I finished the kindergarten video, and it turned out pretty cute, although to my semi-trained eye there are way too many things wrong with it to make it actually useful. But the untrained were entertained.

At noon I went to meet with the Newnan Cultural Arts Commission to offer the proposal for William Blake’s Inn. Everyone was supportive and excited. They decided to sponsor the May 3 performance and to begin looking at finding funding for the entire project, so that’s exciting. (You can download a PDF version of the prospectus.)

We had workshop tonight again. Tonight we worked with Denise Johnson on Two Sunflowers. Melissa is stepping in for Ginny, who will be out of pocket in the days before the performance. (Grayson has to come home from college or something.) We played with the four sunflowers Carol Lee provided and got the Two Sunflowers’ part all blocked out.

We went back over Man in the Marmalade Hat and plugged Denise into that. Then after she left we played more with the Sunflower Waltz. We got the beginning blocked out, but it has become very clear that the big, big parts of the waltz can’t be worked out through focus on the movements of individual sunflowers. We will have to use the masses of sunflowers and their movements to make sense of the music. Somebody should have thought of that before they let me write all that huge ballet music.

We’re moving into a new phase, less brainstorming and more implementation. It’s harder work.

In other news, Marc has been playing with ArtRage and has produced the following images:

Striking, a beautiful use of the program.