Author Topic: PLAYS: On the Verge  (Read 6311 times)

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KatyTru

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PLAYS: On the Verge
« on: Feb 17, 2014, 11:30 am »
I'm going into tech week for a production of On The Verge. It's the biggest show I've ever done and involves rain and snow and snowballs. Any advice?



Edited to add topic tag. - Maribeth
« Last Edit: Feb 17, 2014, 08:33 pm by Maribeth »
What is time even?

BARussell

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Re: On the Verge
« Reply #1 on: Feb 17, 2014, 12:42 pm »
Quit....just kidding, I'm sure someone whois more helpful will chime in with serious advice.
"We don't negotiate with weirdos!"

bex

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Re: On the Verge
« Reply #2 on: Feb 17, 2014, 05:12 pm »
I've never done On the Verge, but I have done Metamorphoses & had rain onstage in a couple of other shows. And also several leaky theater roofs that caused unscripted rain onstage, but that's another story.

Make sure there are a lot of towels backstage. However many you think you need (ie, at least one per actor who gets wet + a couple for crew/spills), get more. Keep them on hand even after tech is done.

Make sure you have bathrobes or some other plan in place for when the actors get wet during tech and then you have to hold or go on break. A wet actor sitting in a chilly theater for hours is a recipe for having the whole cast sick at opening.

I don't know what your method of water capture/containment/disposal is, or how extensive the water on stage is, so it's hard to be specific here, but another thing to watch out for is wet backstage areas. No matter how well you treat the actual stage deck for non-slippage, water will get tracked into the wings and typical backstage black-painted maso + puddles of water is no bueno. If there's just wet shoes but no puddles, I've had success with tacking down carpet just out of sightlines at all of the exits as a sort of reverse-doormat kind of "wipe your shoes when you come offstage" scenario. Another time the scene shop laid water-proof rubbery sheets down backstage in an approx. 8' radius around the rain effect. We would mop the splatter at Intermission & post-show to prevent standing water, but they didn't do a very good job of sealing the gaps between the sheets so there was a bit of a nasty surprise at strike from water trapped under the rubber growing mold that made whole sections of the deck have to be replaced.  There was another show that mixed sand into the paint to give more traction on the deck. 

New, absorbent mop-heads and a wet shop-vac for cleaning up puddles quickly. Water disposal is also important. Where will you dump the dirty water? The dressing room shower is not a good option. The paint sink in the scene shop or the floor drain in the janitor's closet are.

Depending on how wet the actors get, rubbermaid-type tubs that will keep the wet clothes from leaking all over the floor are a better bet than regular laundry baskets with holes in the side.

What are the actors wearing under their costumes? If they get totally drenched, costumes should provide them with underwear to wear during the show so that they are not stuck wearing their personal clothing, wet, for the rest of the day (because you know at least one actor would forget to bring a dry pair). Also so that the wet clothes that become transparent/translucent don't show mickey mouse underwear.

Do you have 2-show days? Or a short turn-around from evening shows to school matinees? If so, make sure that there are doubles of the wet costumes, or that they can go in the dryer (and have enough time to run the cycle!). Large costume pieces, dry-clean only pieces, etc that would normally air dry might not have enough time to completely dry between shows on a quick turn-around.
« Last Edit: Feb 17, 2014, 05:18 pm by bex »
You will have to sing for your supper & your mortgage, your dental coverage & your children's shoes, over & over again while people in desk jobs roll their eyes the minute you start to complain. So it's a good thing you like to sing.

Maribeth

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Re: On the Verge
« Reply #3 on: Feb 17, 2014, 08:32 pm »
Can you be more specific? Are you looking for advice about working with water onstage, or something else?

I don't know On The Verge, but there's rain in my current show. I second what Bex said, particularly about having costume undergarments for actors who are going to get wet, and doubles for certain costume pieces.

If it's possible to control the temperature of the water, see if you can make it comfortably warm for actors who will get wet. Does your theatre have space warmers that can be used to keep changing areas warm?

Keep an eye out for bubbles in the floor. Water should be cleaned up as soon as possible afterward to prevent damage to scenery and mold. Beware "squishiness" in the floor. Wet-vacs, towels, mops, fans....

When possible, teching a water scene a couple of times without the actor actually getting wet always helps. That way, the actor doesn't have to go through it dozens of times, and sit around in wet clothes.


Edited to add: Check out this article on a production of Metamorphoses- lots of interesting info about working with water.
« Last Edit: Feb 17, 2014, 08:39 pm by Maribeth »

cdavisnyc

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Re: PLAYS: On the Verge
« Reply #4 on: Feb 18, 2014, 03:16 pm »
I worked a show with an extended rain sequence. This is what we did (and probably overkill for your show, but take the bits which will work for you):

-Built a low (2") pool frame around the space to contain the water.
-Covered audio inputs and electrical outlets with plastic.
-Used the old soft goods - if they get too wet, the flame retardant shows salt lines, also after the show closed, those curtains had to be cleaned and re-treated.
-Lined the wings with lengths of black terrycloth on the deck to prevent slipping
-Lined the dressing room halls with a non-skid plastic liner
-Dedicated one room to be the "drying room" with racks and shoe holders and plenty of fans.
-We had a modified shop-vac with a fire hose attachment which ran to a drain on the loading dock.
-Giant squeegees! Push the water to the shop vac.

Preshow, we loaded the tanks as late as possible with as much hot water as we could. We ran out of hot water about halfway through the filling process, so we tried to fill all of our three tanks evenly with hot & cold water.

Postshow, we loaded the giant terrycloth floor towels into trash cans on dollies, took them to wardrobe, used the spin cycle to get most of the water out, then back to stage to be hung on unused pipes overnight.

Even with all of that, we were damp on two-show days, and even overnight wasn't enough time between an evening show and a student matinee. Costume doubles are very important. Lots of hot tea & coffee in the green room. Bathrobes are a great idea, and double the amount of towels you think you will need.

If your building has an industrial HVAC system, see if you can get them to program it not to go to an "unoccupied" setting. If it runs continuously, on any temp setting, it should dehumidify as well.

Buy your facilities staff some beer, because you are guaranteed to ruin the wax job on the floors in the support space and they will have to strip the floors & re-wax.

That was my experience. Your mileage may vary.

-Colleen

bex

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Re: PLAYS: On the Verge
« Reply #5 on: Feb 18, 2014, 05:18 pm »

-Giant squeegees! Push the water to the shop vac.


GIANT SQUEEGEES ARE THE BEST! So great for pushing water over a flat surface to a drain.
You will have to sing for your supper & your mortgage, your dental coverage & your children's shoes, over & over again while people in desk jobs roll their eyes the minute you start to complain. So it's a good thing you like to sing.

Dart

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Re: PLAYS: On the Verge
« Reply #6 on: Feb 18, 2014, 11:28 pm »
I worked backstage for The Tempest in a 2-inch deep pool (which was always filled) and a rain sequence. That was fun. And I'm sure it involved a lot more water than yours will.

We made a deal with a neighboring Hilton hotel (we shared a wall!) so they gave us clean towels every night, which we returned for cleaning, in return for credit in the program. We had 12 performers and 2 backstage people, and we literally went through 40 towels a night (so we got 40 each night, and asked for an extra 10 to keep around if we ever needed more). If you can manage this, great! Just make sure you introduce yourself and your staff to all the managers/bosses, even the ones who'll seem irrelevant, and tell them all how long the run is. When I or the other backstage person went to get towels the first two nights, everyone was great, but as the month went on they started giving us problems, saying they'd never met us, and asking if we were even telling the truth about the show.

We absolutely had space heaters in the green room, towels over all the couches, and halfway through the show we hung some of those outdoor heater things backstage, so the actors would also be warm while waiting for their entrances. We hung some heat-refecting panels right above the heaters, so all the heat would go toward the actors rather than toward the fire detectors. And each actor had a bath robe they put on the second they got offstage.

Like cdavisnyc, we took one of the backstage rooms and turned it into a drying/wardrobe room, with plastic bins everywhere so we could hang costumes and shoes above them and they'd catch the water.

If the costume designer can treat the costumes, see if they can be made water-repellent. We used Scotchguard on the outside of the clothes (not on the inside so washing them wouldn't be an impossible feat) and water basically bounced off the costumes (like an umbrella). Yay!

Also, our post-show involved literally vacuum-cleaning the set, the floors backstage, under the stage, and the (carpeted) house floors. We used those orange shop-vacs, and had to empty them three or four times every night. We laid some nonslip rugs (the black things every theatre seems to have backstage) backstage, so both the rugs and the floor below got vacuumed. We hung the rugs up on flats to speed drying up, and then left industrial fans, pointed to cover as much of the floor (and rugs) backstage as possible, on all night. I know it sounds like overkill, but we still found water everywhere when we came in in the morning. This at least seemed to keep the mildew down.

Regarding rain - our set-up was "simply" two PVC pipes in the air, with holes all over, connected to our utility sink backstage. We tested it every day and left the water on all show long, with a key right offstage that we'd turn to turn it on. If the decision had been up to me, I'd have done it differently - turning the water on with a warning, 2 or 3 minutes before rain, and turning the key on a GO. Our rain was always cold because the hot water ran out by the time we got to the scene! I insist on testing it every day, though. A couple of days we came in and although nobody had touched the hoses and pipes, we found some connections would leak. I seem to recall that one day our PM even had to go on an emergency run to get a new hose, because ours wouldn't stop leaking.

I wasn't dealing with any electronics and I never saw the show from the house side, so I don't know the actual specifics - but I know toward the show we got a couple of ghosting lights and our projections became finicky. One of our speakers also bit it toward the end of the show. The official diagnosis was that all the humidity in the air throughout an entire month got to the electronics. I haven't worked in that theatre again, so I'm not sure if the electronics got fixed or if they had to replace any of them.

Maribeth

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Re: PLAYS: On the Verge
« Reply #7 on: Jul 15, 2016, 05:47 pm »
Since this seems to be the thread about working with water onstage..... On my current show, we have a rain apparatus that drips into a small pool, naturally splashing all over the floor as it does. Actors also stand/walk in the pool, so water gets everywhere and creates slipping hazards. Two things that have helped:

1- We treated the floor around the pool with a clear, textured paint treatment. It functions sort of like a no-slip tread that you would put on the bottom of a shower or tub.

2- The actors use either waterproof cushioned first aid tape on their feet to help them grip better, or a gripping adhesive, like pole dancers use. The adhesive comes in a stick form, like deodorant, and you can roll it on your feet or hands.

We've also worked a couple of "clean-up" moments into the show. Shamwows are everywhere! Backstage is carpeted which also helps with keeping backstage dry/non-slip.

The pool is filtered and periodically emptied, cleaned, and refilled. It's also covered with plastic overnight to keep dust and particles out.