Monday, February 25, 2008

the inside of one of the big set pieces for oliver

The Oliver Set

The set for Oliver is enormous, beautiful and incredible. It is also ugly, and difficult. It consists of two, two-story buildings. One building is an exterior and when it turns around it is the inside of a house. The other building is another exterior and when it turns around it is thieves kitchen (Fagin's place). The set also includes London Bridge which is made of two detachable pieces that together are about 30 feet long and 13 feet high. One the front side of them, they look like a bridge. On the back side of one of them it is another exterior for street scenes. The set is very conventional if only the set builder had seen the theater before he drew the plans. The sets just barely fit, and I mean barely, as in they are constantly hitting the legs and are just inches away from hitting the psych (Jeff knows what I am talking about). The backstage at the theater is extremely tiny and there is basically no room. It is going to be a fiasco.

Ok, so not only are the sets enormous, but they were also built construction grade. That means they could actually be real houses. They are extremely heavy and extremely hard to move around. These things could probably withstand a hurricane.

On top of all the physical problems, there are cosmetic issues. On saturday they started painting. The main color of the exteriors is a coral-pinkish color. It is not that bad. But then they put green as the accent color on all the molding and other parts of the set that are not walls. It is hideous. On top of all that they did a bad paint job. The set designer wanted it to look "rustic" so he did a spotty first coat and it leaving it like that. You can still see some of the wood!!!!!!! I was so mad! 1. It looks awful. 2. It should not be rustic, it is London, not suburb of London 60 miles away. Oh yeah London bridge needs to be "rustic too". The thing is supposed to be made out of stone!!!!!! I was so mad I decided I needed to do something about it so I just went around to everyone and created a stir. If they do not finish painting the set I will personally break into the theater late at night and do the whole thing myself.

Anyway, at least we get a real orchestra. only 9 pieces, but thank god it is not that orch-extra synthesized crap we had to use on Les Mis. I miss the days of the 16 piece orchestra during Beauty and the Beast.

I will take pictures of the set tonight and post them so everyone can see the awfulness.