January 29, 2013
Day
Three at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:
so far it’s been a whirlwind of meeting new people, getting to know
Ashland, getting to know the facilities and working on quite a few different
projects. Before I dive into my initial
observations, here’s a little background on me:
I am currently a staff Scenic Artist at Milwaukee Repertory Theater in
Milwaukee, WI. This is my first season
with the Rep; I started working there in July of 2012 and have painted 8 ½ shows out of their 13 show season. Before joining the Rep’s staff, I was a
freelance scenic artist in New York City for four years. Transitioning from freelance to full-time
staff has been interesting; I have found that there are many differences. More on that later, as it applies...
The major differences between the Rep and OSF that I’d like
to point out right away are our differences in staffing and in facilities. I’ll stick mostly to the paint shop, as that
is my area. At the Rep, we have a Charge
Artist, a Lead Scenic Artist, a Scenic Artist (me), and an intern. At OSF, they have a Charge Artist, two Lead
Scenic Artists (one of them is Thayne, my exchange partner), two Scenic
Artists, and two interns. So OSF has
almost twice as many artists in their shop.
However, our space at the Rep is probably four times the floor space
that is available at OSF. (OSF has a
separate space in which they paint that I have yet to see, so I may make
amendments to this observation.)
However, their performance spaces are larger than ours. Both companies have three theatres, but two
of OSF’s spaces are about as large as our one main stage. Long story short: they’re producing more
scenery at the end of the day.
The other thing that I wanted to briefly hit on before we
get deep into this exchange was how difficult planning was. To be clear, it wasn’t difficult because of
OSF or because of the Rep. It was
difficult because of the nature of theatre.
To do an equal exchange, where two scenics worked on the same number of
shows, would be nearly impossible to plan because every theater’s performance
schedules are different, which makes their build schedules different. Add in factors such as the number of artists
working and floor space available, planning for such an accurate exchange would
simply never happen. A concrete example:
while at OSF, I will mostly be working on “The Unfortunates”, but I won’t have
enough time here to finish the project.
Thayne will have a little more success: he’ll be painting two shows
start-to-finish at the Rep. This is
because both of those shows open by the time he leaves, whereas “The
Unfortunates” doesn’t open for another three weeks after my departure. It would be an interesting experiment to swap
artists for an entire season, but our paint time is July-March, whereas OSF’s
paint time is fall-summer. The schedules
simply wouldn’t allow it. Nevertheless, I
think this exchange is such an awesome idea and I can’t wait to see what
everyone gets out of it. Stay tuned for
more thoughts on my first week here!
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