Danielle Richter: Tech Tech and More Tech

The past couple of weeks have been crazy. In three weeks, we’ve had tech for two shows and opened two shows. I’ve never done tech back to back like that before. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we normally don’t work on two shows that open back to back. At Milwaukee Rep, as soon as we got into Noises Off tech, we were building, setting, and styling wigs and facial hair for A Christmas Carol and went into tech the next week. I don’t know how Lara (the wig master) does all of this stuff by herself normally. She’s amazing. It was a really good experience to work on two shows at the same time. I definitely got quicker at setting wigs. Lara and I got on a roll with the Christmas Carol wigs, and finished everything with a little time to spare. I set and styled most of the men’s wigs for Christmas Carol. I learned a couple different types of sets for men’s wigs, including a pin curl set. It was a lot of fun to figure out which sets created which styles from the research pictures.  This is a picture of a men’s wig in a set that I did. 

As always the weather was ridiculously cold. There was one day where it got down to 7 degrees and below 0 degrees with the wind chill… Needless to say I stayed indoors as much as possible during that time. One morning I walked to work when it was 19 degrees outside, and people were lined up on the streets waiting for a parade to start. It was 8:30 am and the parade didn’t start until 10:00am. My legs were numb by the time I got to work, and there were people sitting outside like it was 70 degrees and sunny. I will never understand how people can sit outside in that cold, but more power to them. On one day, I was able to go outside in just a T-shirt for about 5 minutes. I was super proud of myself and of course had to take a picture to document the moment. It may have been about 40 degrees, but still for a Texan that’s pretty good. :) 

Despite the cold, this city is really beautiful. I love the architecture of the buildings. It snowed for a few days last week and it was really pretty. Milwaukee has a bunch of Christmas lights already set up, so the snow with the lights made the city that much more beautiful. They also have a Christmas tree set up in what I’m guessing is their Times Square.

One of my adventures over the past couple of weeks involved going to a place called Comet Cafe with a few people I work with in the costume shop. The Cafe apparently serves baskets of bacon on Sunday afternoons. I didn’t get to experience this, but the idea is pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I got an omelet that was pretty spectacular. They also serve coffee that tastes similar to Noble coffee (a small coffee shop in Ashland), so it was a little taste of home. Ill definitely be going back again before I leave Milwaukee. 

I only have two more weeks left in my program, and am super excited to see what else I can learn in that time. Over the past four weeks I’ve learned so much and feel as though I’ve gotten more comfortable and confident in my skills as a wig artist. I’m excited to get back to OSF and apply everything I’ve learned and practiced while here in Milwaukee. I’ll be sad to leave all the amazing people and friends I’ve made here though. 

Danielle Richter: The Coldest Place on Earth with the Best People on Earth.

Being from Texas, I have a different definition of the word “cold” and “winter.” I thought living in Ashland, Oregon, working for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I’d experienced cold weather. Ashland is nothing compared to Milwaukee… In my first week working at Milwaukee Repertory Theater I feel like I’ve experienced it all weather wise. My first day it was 40 degrees and pouring rain, and the next day it was 45 and sunny. It’s been down in the 20s and snowing, and then there is the  wind coming off the lake that will make any day feel like it’s 20 degrees colder than it really is. Needless to say, it’s been an a adventure every time I walk out the door to walk to work.

All crazy weather stuff aside, I’m having a really awesome and positive experience working at Milwaukee Rep in the wig room. Milwaukee’s wig room is completely different than the one at OSF. First off, they only have one wig person to OSF's eight. Lara, their wig master, does everything herself (with the occasional help from costume interns or, on the off chance they have it in their budget, an over-hire wig person). That woman is a superstar. I love being somewhere where I feel like I’m really helping. It was my goal to get more experience building and ventilating wigs during this exchange. So far that’s all I’ve been doing since I’ve gotten here, (which is awesome.) I’ve been working on wigs for Noises Off and soon I’ll move on to Christmas Carol. I already feel like I’m getting faster at tying those tiny knots of hair. It’s also been nice to exchange information about the different styles of wig building I know of, and the ones that Lara uses in her shop. Second big difference is that their wardrobe people double as wig run crew, compared to OSF who has wig staff members assigned to every show. I really admire all these people who work in so many different areas within the theater.

I have to say I really love the people I’m working with here at Milwaukee Rep. Everyone in the costume shop is so nice, and I love working with the Lara. I’ve meet a lot of the interns who, like me, are new to the company. They invited me out bowling last Monday, which was a lot of fun. Something I love about theater in general, is how small of a business it is. It seems like every person I’ve meet here at the Rep knows at least three of the people I work with at OSF. I hope to meet even more of the company in my next 5 weeks.

I’ve had one adventure exploring the city last weekend (since the weather was nice enough to go out in). I spent most of my day at the Milwaukee Art Museum, which is an amazing building. The building was designed to look like a sail boat, and has “wings” that open in the morning and close at night. It was quite the thing to look at. 

On the inside of the building, there are these giant glass walls that overlook the lake. It was so beautiful outside that day, you could see for miles. I sat for a pretty long time just looking out at the water.

My favorite artwork in the museum was defiantly an exhibition they had of Thomas Sully’s art called Painted Performance. They were beautiful, and most were what they called “subject pictures” that centered around theater, literature, and fairy tales. There were about 80 altogether. My favorite was one called “Little Nell Asleep in the Curiosity Shop”, which was oil on canvas painted in 1841. I’m so glad I had a chance to visit this museum, and I’m so happy to be spending time in Milwaukee at the Rep despite the cold.

This is the view from the window in the wig room. 

Kate Lucibella: Automation and the Pacific

This past week I was lucky enough to spend some time with OSF automation programmer Jennifer Hanson and electrical designer Ryan Poethke.   Jennifer was kind enough to take me through the typical OSF automation training as well as a walk-through of the operating system as well as the physical pieces that are used on a regular basis.

The software and operating system are developed entirely in house so the program can be designed and tweaked to do exactly what is needed of it.  There were some similarities between the system we use at STC (Raynok) but for the most part it was a completely different way of looking at automation.  I found the OSF program to be very intuitive and very user friendly.  After only spending about a half hour with the program I found I could easily navigate around the menus and caught onto programming pretty quickly. Unlike the Raynok system, there aren't really any drop down menus but pop up menus that can move around the home screen that allow you to look at different axis’ and cues and all the information for each.  The biggest difference for me what once a cue executes, the program automatically advances to the next cue.  On a Raynok system you have to manually advance to the next cue.

So what happens if you have to rerun the cue you just took? There’s a button for that! Here’s a picture of the automation console: 

The “re-run-current” button allows you to retake the cue that was just executed.  In order to take any cue on the console you need to be holding down the “enable” button. So in order to execute a cue, you need to hold down the enable button and then push the “Go” button.  This safety makes it difficult for something to get pushed by accident. The console also allows you to stop a cue mid-progress (you do not have to hold down the “enable” button to stop a cue), go back to a previous cue with the “cue back” button (this does not execute a cue but sets up for the next execution), or in case of bad things happening; immediately stop everything with the “Emergency Stop” button.  E-stops also shut down communication to the drives (the brains of automation) so when operators walk away from the console, they can push the E-stop as a safety measure.

The only major advantage of the Raynok system over the OSF system was that Raynok allows for position based cuing.  OSF automation software only can do timing based cuing. Both of these cuing methods are used for autofollow cues, where multiple things happen within one cue.  For example, there is a lift and a sunroof.  The sunroof is open retracted into the deck and the lift is all the way up at deck level.  In the next automation cue the lift wants to move down to it’s storage position in the trap room and the sunroof wants to close.  In position based cuing you can tell the sunroof not to start closing until the lift has moved down to a specific measurement.  In timing based cuing you tell the sunroof not to start moving until x number of seconds have passed.  The advantage of position based cuing is that it has its own safety built in.  If something happens to the lift and the lift never reaches the assigned distance for the sunroof to start moving, the sunroof will not move.  In time based cuing, if something happens to the lift and it doesn’t move the sunroof will still try and move when it has reached x seconds that were written in the programming.  You can see why position based cuing is a big advantage.  OSF is working on developing position based cuing for their software as we speak.

A couple other interesting things about the OSF automation system.  Most of their systems are run off belts.  Rather than using cable or chain, most axis are belt driven.  The belts are ribbed and have steel running through them.  This basically eliminates any stretch and allows for much more accurate tuning and consistent cuing.  They also use sensor safeties to protect scenery and props from getting run over and destroyed.  If something breaks the line of the sensors, it automatically stops the system.  Within the software, there is a way to override the sensors manually in case one of them were to go out for some reason, the performance could continue, just without the safeties. 

Ok, that was a lot of info about automation.  They’re software and system are pretty amazing and I was very lucky to get a chance to talk to their entire automation department about various elements of the system. 

And just to balance it out, here’s a picture of the Pacific Ocean: 

Kate Lucibella: Tech, Crater Lake, the 4th of July, and San Francisco

Stagehand Kate Lucibella is participating in an A Ha! Artisan Exchange at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The last couple weeks have been busy.  I spent about a week and a half backstage for the tech of The Liquid Plain; a new work by Naomi Wallace.  It’s a beautiful piece that takes place during the years of the transatlantic slave trade.  It also has some of the best use of projections I’ve seen to date.  It was good to see that tech is tech wherever you go. There are some problems, some challenges, some very creative problem solving, and in the end, the product is exactly what it’s supposed to be.  Being a part of this world premier was a truly rewarding experience. 

I also discovered my new favorite piece of stage equipment.  The OSF stage crew calls it an “Uncle Buddy” and it’s used to pinch off linesets to keep them from running or slipping.  They work great on a double purchase lineset that has been rigged for a specific function and doesn’t operate within the fly rail.  For The Liquid Plain, a cage had to fly in and an actor had to get inside.  Since the system had been rigged for just this purpose, there was no brake on the operating lines so when the cage was flown into its proper height, the flyman would apply the “Uncle Buddy” to the lineset, which locked the ropes so the cage wouldn’t move once the actor got into it.  Here’s a picture of what it looks like when the lineset is locked off:

 

The biggest difference about tech at OSF was that other shows had to perform in the space as well.  So before we had finished teching the show, we needed to shift into another set.  Since these were the first shifts in and out of The Liquid Plain they took a bit more time and required a bit more trial and error.  Space had to be divvied up and the order of set pieces had to be established.  This is something I’ve never had to deal with in a tech process and it was really impressive too see how well the stage hands take all these things into account and make it work. 

Outside of tech, I got to see some pretty amazing things over the past two weeks.  I drove out to Crater Lake one day and I have to admit, it kind of takes your breath away.  The Rim Drive circles the lake but the entirety of the road isn’t open all year round so unfortunately I didn’t get to drive around the whole thing.  What was really crazy was that there were still many feet of snow on the ground. It was a beautiful, sunny 90 degree day and I stood next to a snow drift that was almost as tall as I was.  That’s not something you see every day.  Here’s a picture from one of the overlooks:

 

I also spent the 4^th of July in Ashland and saw an awesome parade and pretty good firework display.  I also caught the live broadcast from DC and saw some familiar sights so it was kind of like having two 4^th of Julys on two coasts.  Ashland explodes for the holiday.  People came into downtown the evening before and staked out space along the parade route with duct tape and signs.  What was cool to me was that these reservations were honored.  In DC, tape on the sidewalk wouldn’t mean anything, but that’s the difference between a big city and a small town.  What was also cool about Ashland on the 4^th was that they set up a craft and food fair in Lithia Park where local vendors came out and set up booths.  It reminded me a bit of Eastern Market in DC.

I got a couple days in a row off so I took a road trip down to San Francisco to see some friends. On the way down I took a side trip out to Muir Beach and got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time.  As someone who has lived on the East Coast her entire life, that was exciting. In San Francisco, if you’re ever in the Union Square area, there’s an awesome bar called John Foley’s Irish House that has dueling pianos in their downstairs bar.  It’s a cross between a comedy show and a talent show.  The two guys are amazingly talented and hysterically funny.  I didn’t get to see as much of San Francisco as I would have liked but Golden Gate Park is amazing and the city itself is a lot of fun.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to get back.  Unfortunately, my camera was stolen in Golden Gate Park so I don’t have any pictures from the Pacific Ocean or the city, but here’s one of the Golden Gate Bridge I took with my phone.  Don’t worry, my camera is insured!

 

It’s been a busy, productive, exciting week filled with new and also familiar experiences.  I’m having a great time in Ashland learning new things from OSF that I can take back to DC with me, and exploring the West Coast has been amazing. I hope the next few weeks will be as rewarding as these last weeks have been.

 

 

Josh Kelly: My Last Week

I leave for home in just a few short days. I'm already looking forward to working with Chris and being her tour guide to DC. (Chris Carpenter is the OSF crafts artisan who will travel to DC early in 2014 for an exchange.) I plan on introducing her to the other crafts artisans and costume shops around town as well as the DC that tourists come to see. This past week I met Deb Dryden, costume designer and author of Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre. This text has been an essential guide for nearly every person who has become a theatrical painter/dyer. Of course we talked shop. She had just returned home from a surface design conference and had experimented with both e-textiles and computer printing onto everything from homemade paper to fabric to metal mesh. It was an honor and a highlight of the trip to meet her.

The prospect of using more technology in theatre production seems inevitable even though we work in a field where small batch, old school, artisan techniques remain the norm. Here in Ashland, water use is sometimes a concern, and the opportunity to find more ecologically responsible products is a priority. The investigation of safer products to use in an historically toxic work environment is imperative. Using computer printing techniques can allow a larger range of design options, often with a much faster production turnaround, and it allows for endless reproduction. I'm going to try to approach more projects with an eye towards technological advantage. Could this be better, faster, cheaper, or safer if I think around my normal process?

Thank you to Rachel Maize, Christine Smith-McNamara, Chris Carpenter, Caroline Dignes, Lene Price, Betsy Krausnick, and the entire costume shop for making me feel so welcome. I've had a marvelous time and highly recommend this exchange to others interested. I'm looking forward to being home with my family, friends, and shop, which is often one in the same.

Josh Kelly: How to Be Better

Over the past four weeks I've been able to observe two important management events. The costume staff participated in end of the year performance reviews. The process is simple with a single-page document of questions, filled out by the employee and the costume shop management and discussed in a meeting. In discussion with the staff, I get the impression that it's the time to talk about what's not working and what could be better. In DC we do this twice a year.  It's a process I dread. We have four pages of questions, a grading scale, and personal goals that must be set and accomplished in order to even achieve the possibility of a pay increase. When I described our process at the lunch table, I got responses such as, "That would be great" and "We don't have that sort of merit increase."  On further discussion, I began to appreciate our review process. We are actively initiating a process in which we learn to be industrious.  I may not be here if there weren't an incentive for me to set educational goals and try to realize a goal to become a more complete crafts artisan.

The other event I witnessed was a full costume staff meeting without management, where we broke up into smaller groups, compiled a list of successes and concerns about the season's productions, brought them back to the larger group for discussion, and appointed a few representatives to take those comments to a meeting with upper management and other departments. It was a great thing for me to see where the build process wasn't working and how to get it fixed. I heard from members of wigs and make-up, wardrobe, and the workroom. I especially liked hearing from the people that came forward as natural leaders of the group. In the end though, I had to laugh. My small group concluded that it's the same everywhere. We all wish we had more money and time, that deadlines should be honored, and that communication is key. The group did come up with some great solutions on smaller issues. I suppose each little victory is how we change our world.

Kate Lucibella: DC to Ashland and All of I-80 In Between

OK, so I didn’t exactly drive the entire length of I-80, but I came close.  My name is Kate Lucibella and I traveled from the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC to participate in an A Ha! Artisan Exchange with th Stage Operations department at OSF.  You only get so many opportunities to drive across country and I felt like I couldn’t pass this one up.  It took me four and a half days and I saw everything from Midwest farms, to cattle ranches in Wyoming, to the salt flats in Utah, to the empty desert of Nevada, to the beautiful mountains and forests of California and Oregon.  While, I’m really glad I have my car out here, and it was a beautiful and worthwhile experience, I think next time I’ll just fly.

I’m going to try to resist comparing STC and OSF since it doesn’t seem fair to either company, but here are a few of the key differences: The STC stage ops department consists of six people; at OSF, approximately 43.  STC works out of two spaces doing one show in each space at a time (or once a season doing two shows in rep at one of the spaces); OSF (at least during the time I am here) will  rotate three shows in and out of three spaces daily for a total of nine shows running at a time.  STC shows run for five to nine weeks depending on the space and extensions; OSF shows run for months.  STC  presents eight performances a week per space.  OSF presents a matinee every day in one or both of their indoor theatres and a performance each night, for up to 12 shows per week in each of those two spaces (the third, outdoor theatre does not present matinees.) STC brings in outside and touring productions from all over the world; OSF produces everything they put onstage.  So there’s a bit of a difference. 

I’ve only been out here a little less than a week and I’ve already realized a bit of what it takes to make the rotating repertory process work: a ton of planning and thinking ahead.  This extends all the way down to the stage hands who shift the sets back and forth.  The breakdown and storage of a set is determined by what show is running next and what show runs after that.  They need to think three shows in advance to make their jobs as efficient as possible.  Time is one of the most important factors.  Many of the shows this season are long (some over 3 hours) so turning sets over from a matinee to an evening production can get a bit tight when factoring in fight calls, vocal calls and half hour.  Everything moves quickly, with a purpose, and with a plan for what’s next.

Shifting is a graceful, bulky, delicate, complicated dance.  Scenic wagons break apart and move so other pieces can move, so other pieces can come out of storage, so other pieces can go into storage.  To watch from the house, it looks like amazingly organized chaos where one minute one set is in place, and about a half hour later a new set has taken its place.  A full shift takes about an hour and a half to two hours from the time the first set of boots hits the deck to the time the last set of boots leaves.  During a shift everyone knows how the pieces are put together, how they come apart and the order they have to go in order to make the most of space and time.  It’s really an impressive thing to participate in. 

My first week at OSF has been a great experience.  I’ve gotten the opportunity to shift scenery, sit in on production meetings, watch flying tests, see a lot of beautiful landscapes, and meet a lot of really great people.  I’m excited for what else is to come.  And just to prove how amazingly beautiful it is, here is a picture from the porch of my apartment:

 

 

Josh Kelly: Shows, Shows, Shows!

 In my time here, I will have seen 10 of the 11 shows being produced at OSF this season. I started with the Elizabethan Stage shows. Having done two of the shows in the recent past, I was very familiar with them. I honestly preferred The Shakespeare Theatre productions, however my work was involved to say the least so I had a lot invested.  I saw an evening performance of The Unfortunates in the Thomas Theatre.  I then moved on to the Bowmer Theatre shows. I saw Streetcar, My Fair Lady, and Shrew. The Tenth Muse opens after I leave. I saw another performance of The Unfortunates Sunday, and will see Lear, Two Trains Running, Midsummer again, and the dress rehearsal of The Liquid Plain on my last evening here. That's 12 performances in 5 weeks.

The Unfortunates was an amazing production. It was one of those shows where the breadth of ideas was mind blowing in a rather simple concept. The look of the show was worn, flashy, a little frightening, a spectacle. The "timeless but old fashioned" kind of thing many directors and designers aim for, but all too often fall short. Jon Beavers was incredible and gave a performance that stayed with me. Ken Robinson played the Preacher in The Unfortunates and as Freddy in My Fair Lady. He has a voice as smooth and natural as his acting style. I hope I get to see his performances more in the future.

I'm fortunate enough to see theatre at many different theaters in Washington, DC. Each company has a specific style one expects.  Here, so many styles and genres exist for the visitors and residents of Ashland. As a matter of fact, I sat next to residents of the area at all the shows I saw. The loyalty to this company and excitement for live theatre is present in its neighbors.

Josh Kelly: Getting Fresh Ideas

I'm spending the majority of my time here in the dye/paint area. When I first arrived, I was the fourth person in the space. The range of experience is broad, with a combined total of more than 60 years of textile modification. I started by going around the room and saying things like, "What's this used for? Where do you buy that?  Which do you prefer?  How on earth did you do that?"  My questions are never ending and I'm sure some days my coworkers are ready to kick me out of the room. On those days, I head downstairs and talk to the drapers, craftspeople, or design assistants. I'm feeling that I'm getting good information from everyone in the shop.

Aside from the basic facility differences, I've been able to acquire a lot in the way of shortcuts and tricks to making nicer quality and longer lasting costumes. I'm looking into the various forms of color matching sheets being used here. The Spoonflower color chart is most promising. They have done some quick stencils and printing using a stencil cutter from props which is so fast to create and change. I've been introduced to no weed transfer paper, a whole different set of Jones Tones paints, and Bo Nash Fuse-It Powder. I'm using Iwata airbrushes over my Badger and Paasche brand airbrushes. I've been turned on to Golden Clear Tar Gel for a shiny transparent blood effect with lots of texture that doesn't dull with cleaning. From the business office assistant, I'm finding new vendors for supplies that places like Greenberg & Hammer carried. From the craft room, I picked up a new technique for making a strong, curved topper, a better way to prep felts for pulling, and some brilliant applications for making unfortunate leather garments appear less shiny and more subtle. The design assistants gave me tips from individual designer's working styles to where I might find easily dyeable knee pads. I'm including some photos of coworkers and a couple of process shots.

After all of that information, the one area the costume shop excels in, like most costume shops, is food. Nearly everyday there are treats.  From baked goods to fresh fruit to cheese and crackers, these people love to share some delicious culinary delights. They are often willing to share some recipes as well.

Josh Kelly: Living in Oregon

 

Being a Midwesterner living on the East coast for 13 years, SW Oregon is a whole new ballgame. I've come at the changeover from spring to summer. The spring rains and leftover snow in the mountains made for beautiful cool and sometimes cold evenings and mornings. As we've transitioned to summer weather, the dry heat can take your breath away. And the sun!  There hasn't been a cloud in the sky for nearly two weeks. If you visit, bring your sunscreen. Back home, there has been tornadoes, oppressive heat and humidity, and flash floods. I'm not sure if Ashlanders know how lucky they are.

Outdoors is where everyone lives. Every day on my half block walk to the costume shop, I pass nearly 20 people out running with their dogs, walking with their strollers, or ambling on their relatively short commute to work. In DC, I commute 80 minutes on two forms of public transit to get 12 miles.  On breaks, many people go for a walk or spend time on the outdoor deck of the shop. This week I will be joining my coworkers for a CrossFit session during lunch.

The organic selection at the regular grocery store equals that of  the conventional produce.  Plus, there are two grocery stores committed to organic produce exclusively. For those of us that have lived in urban food deserts, this is how the other half lives.  

When not working, the outdoor options for this place are too numerous to name. As a fisherman, there are streams and lakes to explore, one more beautiful than the last. It is the primary reason I've already decided to come back and visit. On my first weekend, I was driven by my fellow craftspeople, Betsy and Chris, up to Crater Lake.  It was awe inspiring. We had lunch at the lodge and pie on the way back, as is the custom. If I had a car here, I would be able to explore more, however I might not come back in to work.

 

 

A five week stay away from home is more difficult than I could have imagined. Although the people here couldn't be more generous, I'm still missing all my friends and family. This is the first time in nearly 15 years that I've spent more than a month away from my partner. Waking up without two cats to feed feels empty. I've missed my god daughter's junior production of "Aladdin". I've missed the first beach weekend of the year. Worst of all, I'm away when 4 of my theatre friends had their positions eliminated. Hearing news about such significant changes at home is scary. I'm not surprised. I understand what responsible companies have to do to remain within budget. I have survived similar cuts at arts institutions where I have worked 4 times over the past 13 years. It just stinks not being around for my friends. Chris's visit to DC next year will be a little shorter. More people might find it a little more reasonable length of time for an exchange.  My next post will be all about the great techniques and suppliers I've been learning about.

A-ha Artisan Exchange: Josh Kelly Comes to Ashland

Hello from Oregon! My name is Josh Kelley and I am the lead crafts artisan at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC. As The Shakespeare Theatre's costume painter/dyer, I hold a year round position to create all costume props or crafts for all of our 7 original productions. My A-ha Artisan Exchange has brought me to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival costume shop, which has somewhere around 10 costume crafters and dyers who work a 6-8 month season depending on contracts. Each show at OSF is assigned anywhere from 2-4 craft artisans. My exchange cohort is Chris Carpenter, OSF’s head dyer/painter. We have arranged a non-concurrent exchange so we can work directly with each other at our home theaters and share the experience. Chris will be visiting DC early next year to work on The Shakespeare Theatre's production of Henry IV.

I couldn't have come to OSF at a better time. A completed co-production back home has allowed me time to come here, leaving The Shakespeare Theatre without a craftsperson for 5 weeks. Upon arrival in Ashland, I found myself in the midst of dress rehearsal for 3 shows. I have the opportunity to see the final weeks of a build, and the chance to see the three designers in rehearsal and at the shop. This designer and artisan relationship is an imperative ingredient to a successful and smooth process. Luckily, two of those three designers are opening the season back at my home theatre. The occasion to begin a relationship with them here has been fortuitous. In the next three weeks I shall be assisting on the two productions that complete OSF's 11 show season.

The most fascinating parts of this adventure so far is to see the thoughtful design of many of OSF's facilities, the fierce devotion of the company members to their company, and the inspiring quality of life. The costume shop, though small for the number of people here, is nicely laid out. The integration of the ventilation systems and storage is exciting to see. The shop staff are inviting and open about sharing their work processes, but are able to leave at the end of the day and experience a vital personal life. It must be the reason so many people come here to work, and stay till they can work no longer. I say this, having sent my resumé 4 years in a row, only to find no positions available every year.  This exchange has been my first opportunity to experience the greatness of this company, and the overwhelming beauty of Ashland, Oregon. I look forward to the next three weeks.

 

Marilin Lopez-Bermudez on portraying a silent character

Photo by Kevin Michael Campbell.

We love working with youth, gardens and food and we've thoroughly enjoyed connecting with the students at LAHSA.  We're observing this play transform into a powerful and truly meaningful apart of their lives. Through our weekly interviews with them, we have learned about their motivations and appreciation for theater, their aspirations for college and beyond and how this play has changed how they see food and its place in school and society. We feel blessed to be a part of this amazing Cornerstone production and are excited to see a play reflect so many of the daily experiences of  high school students in Los Angeles.  We hope you enjoy getting to know these amazing students as much as we have.  - Rosa Romero, Lunch Lady Courage scholar

What about this play did you find intriguing that you wanted to try out for it?

The fact that we would get to work with professionals. I really want to study theater after high school, so that lured me in. And last year, Peter Howard came and talked to us in our classes about food and he introduced the play and it was interesting. I never heard of a play about food, so it was interesting to think about.

What do you think about school food?

They definitely try to make it healthier, but its starting to get boring and tasteless. There’s no fun in it. I didn’t eat lunch today because they’re serving this hamburger and I don’t like the meat…I find it nasty and the potatoes were awful too.

Photo by Kevin Michael Campbell

There are scenes where everyone has Cheetos and another where students are selling contraband food at a school - do you see that happening at your school?

Yes. I think it’s cool if it’s for an important cause. But if people are doing it for their own benefit, I don’t support it. I’ve supported it before but I don’t do that anymore, because it’s just for you and not for the school or a certain club. School food sales should just be for important things like a club.

Tell me about your character in the play?

Katrina is always being watched by her family. Her mother is very overprotective and she is always stomping down on her brothers so that they can take care of me. Although it’s not in the script, my family and I (in the play) have created this background story where something happened to me in the past and they weren’t there for me so that’s why I choose not to speak; because no one was there to help me when I needed it and my mom feels guilty about it. She’s on my case all the time and my brothers too. Now, I’m in this new environment at this high school. I’ve always been homeschooled and now I’m in this new environment where my brothers are starting to stray away and I want to stray away too, because I’m tired of my mom always wanting to control things. I want to be independent and do my own thing.

Photo by Sandra Luna

Your character is prominent in the play but doesn't have lines. How does it feel to play a silent character?

Challenging, because I’ve never done something like this before. You have to think about your body movement a lot, because I can’t talk. I have to articulate with my body instead of with my voice. I’ve had to stay on stage and be quiet and do movement - it’s been a lot of thinking. It’s hard to get a certain sentence across to another actor on stage. I have to show my emotion through my face and my body movement. It's hard but I think I’m getting there.

Do you identify with your character?

Yes, definitely. Katrina is the youngest, and I'm also the youngest. And I identify with the mother-daughter relationship because my mom doesn’t want to let go of me. College is approaching soon and I’m telling her that ‘I’m going to leave soon’ and it’s really hard for her to let go. That’s exactly how Lunch Lady Courage feels because she doesn’t want to let her baby go. I’m struggling with that at home too and I see the similarities.

Photo by Sandra Luna

What do you like about theater?

Becoming other people! I feel like all these different personalities live inside us and we choose which ones to use. I find it very interesting and entertaining. And I love the response you get from the audience. The few shows I’ve done, after the shows my friend are like ‘ oh my god, that was so… you scared me', or something like that, and I like that. It's good, because that’s what I wanted - to get a reaction from them. I like being onstage. I was always quiet, but I knew I wanted to do something big and I wanted to be in front of a lot of people. When I came here [LAHSA], it all came out. Everyone here takes theater here during their first year - either theater performance or theater design.

Interview by Rosa Romero, Lunch Lady Courage Scholar.

Rosa Romero is the Scholar in Residence for Cornerstone Theater's Lunch Lady Courage. Rosa is an active community organizer for healthy food access and green space around Los Angeles. She is the Farm to Preschool Program Manager at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) at Occidental College in Los Angeles and was recently awarded the 2012 Recognition award from Michelle Obama's Let's Move Childcare Initiative. She is also a Board member of the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund and a Certified Master Gardener through the University of California Cooperative Extension and co-founder of Seasonal, Organic Local (SOL) Catering Cooperative. She is a UCLA graduate in the Politics of Urban Education and currently working on her Masters in Early Childhood Education at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

Click here to see Sandra Luna's Lunch Lady Courage Photo Gallery.

Sandra Luna is an educator, photographer, blogger, school garden advocate and environmentalist living in Los Angeles. She is an immigrant from Guatemala and has grown up in Pico Union/Mid City. Since 2010 she has been teaching seven classes and manages the Horticulture Program at Crenshaw High School in South Central Los Angeles. She is a board member of the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund and is a certified Master Gardener through the University of California Cooperative Extension. She is a graduate from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a degree in Urban and Regional Planning and is currently completing her Masters in Natural Resources and Environmental Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her blog displays her love of photography, gardens, people, environment, community, art, travel, food and the beauty of life in general.

Meet Senior Class President: Arely Diaz-Loza

Arely Diaz-Loza as Mia in Lunch Lady Courage. Photo by Kevin Michael Campbell.

We love working with youth, gardens and food and we've thoroughly enjoyed connecting with the students at LAHSA.  We're observing this play transform into a powerful and truly meaningful apart of their lives. Through our weekly interviews with them, we have learned about their motivations and appreciation for theater, their aspirations for college and beyond and how this play has changed how they see food and its place in school and society. We feel blessed to be a part of this amazing Cornerstone production and are excited to see a play reflect so many of the daily experiences of  high school students in Los Angeles.  We hope you enjoy getting to know these amazing students as much as we have.  - Rosa Romero, Lunch Lady Courage scholar

Can you tell me about your character?

Mia is a very passionat e, senior girl who is about to graduate. She is very passionate about the school garden and wishes that the rest of the school would take the garden seriously. Most kids don't care about the school garden, except her. She wants to get people to recognize that the garden is there and that it's an important part of school.

Do you relate to your character?

Yes, I relate. Not in a garden sense, because there is a garden here, but I don’t tend it. I am also in the yearbook club. Recently, they cut all of the staff and took away a lot of our resources. They don't seem to really care about the work we’re doing, even though its hard work. We spend hours after school and have to miss rehearsals for it, so conflicts arise but they said it was a priority for kids to make up their classes than to actually have a yearbook staff. So we kind of feel like we’ve been pushed aside.

So you advocate for the yearbook?

Ye,s I advocate for yearbook a lot. We actually went, the two editors, to speak with the people who are in charge of arranging our classes and we tried to talk to them about rearranging classes, but they kind of pushed us aside and didn’t take what we said into consideration. But we still see the importance  of yearbook and continue to do it.

Photo by Kevin Michael Campbell

When did you start doing theater?

I started doing theater in 9th grade. I used to be more into sports. I was in soccer my freshman year but my acting teacher told me I should audition for the New Works Festival, which is a series of new plays made, directed and produced by students. I auditioned and got a role. The next year I auditioned for a bigger production and got a role. And then I just kept auditioning. I love it! It’s very interesting, the characters you get to play. I’ve played a Korean person, an African American person, a German murderer, and a woman from Africa. The range of characters you get to portray is really cool. I’ve learned a lot.

What about this play made you want to audition?

I think it’s the fact that Cornerstone is doing community-based theater. I liked that Cornerstone was reaching out to the community and trying to get our voices. That appealed to me.

What are your plans after high school?

After high school, I plan on attending a four year university, not having any loans and graduating with a Journalism degree. I’ve applied to private, UCs and Cal States. I will know by the end of March.

I heard you have a very challenging course load and you're also senior class president?

Yes, as of now I have 3 AP classes. Last semester I had 4. I like being a student leader and being involved.

What do you think about selling food in school that's not from the cafeteria?

Photo by Sandra Luna

I think it’s not right, I guess. But I know that a legal fund raiser won’t make us much money. We’ve tried to, on holidays, sell grams, like Valentine’s day gram, Halloween grams before. It only makes us $40 to $50, but we need thousands. And a torta we can sell for $5 - we earned almost $160 in one lunch, in 30 minutes.

Interview by Rosa Romero, Lunch Lady Courage Scholar.

Rosa Romero is the Scholar in Residence for Cornerstone Theater's Lunch Lady Courage. Rosa is an active community organizer for healthy food access and green space around Los Angeles. She is the Farm to Preschool Program Manager at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) at Occidental College in Los Angeles and was recently awarded the 2012 Recognition award from Michelle Obama's Let's Move Childcare Initiative. She is also a Board member of the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund and a Certified Master Gardener through the University of California Cooperative Extension and co-founder of Seasonal, Organic Local (SOL) Catering Cooperative. She is a UCLA graduate in the Politics of Urban Education and currently working on her Masters in Early Childhood Education at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

Click here to see Sandra Luna's Lunch Lady Courage Photo Gallery.

Sandra Luna is an educator, photographer, blogger, school garden advocate and environmentalist living in Los Angeles. She is an immigrant from Guatemala and has grown up in Pico Union/Mid City. Since 2010 she has been teaching seven classes and manages the Horticulture Program at Crenshaw High School in South Central Los Angeles. She is a board member of the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund and is a certified Master Gardener through the University of California Cooperative Extension. She is a graduate from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a degree in Urban and Regional Planning and is currently completing her Masters in Natural Resources and Environmental Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her blog displays her love of photography, gardens, people, environment, community, art, travel, food and the beauty of life in general.

Introducing the Artist-Investigator Program

The Triangle Lab -- a joint program of Cal Shakes and Intersection for the Arts -- brings theaters, artists, and communities together to make change.  When we started thinking about how performance can play a role in making change, solving urban problems, and engaging broader participation from more different people, we knew we wanted to ask artists to tell us what they think the performances of the future might look like.

In fact, we wanted to empower artists to be investigators, to conceive experiments that would help us all  learn more about the role of our art form in a changing cultural environment.  Moreover, we wanted these experiments to be small-scale, easy to accomplish in one year with a small budget.  We wanted them to be experiments that we could learn from, replicate, and share - nimble projects that could work on the kind of innovation timeline we see in the technology sector, rather than on the slow-moving path of season planning.

Last fall, we put out a call for proposals and were stunned when we received 140 applications from artists from all disciplines, a staggering pool of fascinating ideas.  As we reviewed the proposals, we found interesting clusters of thought -- a large number of applicants designed experiments around bringing people together to eat, many proposals delved into very intimate performance  - in someone's home, for an audience of one, or  -- in one case -- taking people's pulses and turning them into music.  A number of proposals brought performance to troubled streets in different Bay Area cities, while others went far inside, looking at online sites for experiments.

Susie Lundy talks about her project "Sky Burial" an installation of 131 pairs of wings  at the location of each 2012 homicide site in Oakland

It was challenging to select just ten of these projects and we knew we wanted to  keep the other applicants in conversation, as we work to build a network of artists exploring the potential of new kinds of performance.

Two of the applicants share their work with each other at a convening

You can read about all ten selected projects on our Triangle Lab website, and watch this blog as well for updates as they develop.

The Artist-Investigators at our launch event