Back in October my friend, Robert, ask me to design Suesical the Musical Jr. for his middle-school class. The set needed to be easily moved… they practice in a gym and then perform on a stage. They do not have time to “build” a set because the stage belongs to the high school. Kids need to be able to move it, so it needed to be light. I started by drawing out the “look” I wanted for the 6 flats I would borrow from CET.
After approval, I went to the Central High School Tech Theater class and offered to teach them painting techniques in exchange for their help. After painting a base coat on the 6 flats, I taught the kids to grid the flats and to copy the drawing. We worked on brush techniques smooth strokes scrubbing, color choice, and care of brushes.
I even divided the kids up into teams to encourage them to work better. Sadly, it didn’t really help. We worked on the project for 2 weeks. Often, kids would miss class… skip class.
The design had 2 sets of tress and 1 set of Suesical town buildings.
I also designed a nest in a tree. I used some CET stairs and covered the front with a pained bent over tree. Lillian and I went to the school and attached the front to the stairs. We added pieces of Hawaiian skirt to create the nest. We also painted one of the eggs I made for Honk so that there would be an egg to “hatch” a baby Horton, and Kimber helped me to create a small egg for Horton to hold at the beginning of the show.
I’m very pleased with the end product. Sadly, I won’t get to see the end product because I will be Teching a show at the High School and attending blocking rehearsals for Legally Blonde.
Resigning as the General Manager of the Universe 