I bought what I hope is the last round of supplies for set crew, and after I got home I made myself go to the backyard and work.

I got the suitcases framed together, and I got all the Toast Head fronts and backs taped to the construction paper. Tomorrow morning I’ll finish the right sides, then glue the foam together, after cutting the remaining foam.

The lawnmower repair place had called to say that our lawnmower was ready, so I walked over to get it. On the way back I passed the new sewing place on Madison St., so I whipped on in there. The owner, Cindy Roberson, was thrilled at the prospect of being our costuming resource. And upstairs, she has an actual costume shop. It was everything the second floor of Manget-Brannon or Johnson Hardware was ever supposed to be. And she wants us to use it.

How’s that for pieces of the puzzle falling into place?

98 days to go.

I thought maybe I’d get some work done on the Toast Heads when I got home from Atlanta, but I had forgotten about the rain.

Instead, I plugged away at the lyrics video. Not very creative, but has to be done.

In other news, I met with Blake Bass, Superintendent of the Coweta County School System, and he’s on board for the project. He even had some key suggestions about fundraising and involvement which I’ll share later.

99 days to go.

Working with the State STAR Student program doesn’t leave you a lot of time to do anything else that particular day, since you begin interviewing these fabulous students first thing in the morning and don’t finish till midafternoon. Then you have to pick the “best” student out of nearly 20 nearly perfect kids. And then there’s the two-and-a-half hour banquet.

So even if we’ve begun the magical countdown of 100 days, all I had time to do was add on a few more songs to the William Blake lyrics video.

It was remarkable this year that almost all of the students were accomplished musicians. And when I say accomplished, I mean things like “concertmaster of the ASYO,” “first chair flute of All-State Orchestra three years in a row,” or like our 2007 State STAR, Keru Cai, a concert pianist who knocked our socks off at GHP in 2005 with the Rachmaninoff 2nd.

One disturbing thing about this year’s STAR program: in years past, one or other of the local television morning shows would have the STAR student and teacher on to talk about their accomplisments and relationship. They all declined last year, and again this year. Their reason? Just not exciting enough.

Next year I’m going to suggest that the STAR student take the judges hostage. Or maybe the judges should take the STAR student hostage. Either way would be more exciting than talking to an accomplished, witty product of Georgia’s schools and her inspiring teacher.

It’s a Monday, so of course my evening was taken up with Masterworks.

But I did get the rest of our supplies bought, including a new radial saw blade (huzzah) and actually got the foam cut out and half the toasts applied to the construction paper for the Toast Heads. Then I moved stuff inside in case it starts to rain earlier than Thursday.

I’ll be out of pocket for the next two days with the State STAR Student program. Since it’s in a nice hotel in Atlanta, I doubt there will be free internet, so anything creative I have done will have to go unremarked upon until Thursday afternoon.

And happy birthday to William Shakespeare!

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.