Will Slusher.net

So yeah, it’s been a while (far too long some might say) since I’ve posted anything…

I was thinking of doing another “catch up” post, ’cause lots of fun things have happend since I posted my graduation congrats for Kris (a week long trip to New Hampshire/Vermont with Kris, A trip or two back to Floyd, and excellent (thought rainy at times) camping canoing trip with Scott and friends, a day-trip with Kris to Monticello)… but, I’m not feeling motivated to tackle that just yet…

I thought instead, I’d write about this past weekend…

My friend Dante got suckered in to graciously decided to serve as technical director for a middle/high school (I think) production of “Into The Woods”… Since there weren’t too many experienced builders working on the project, he decided to get together a bunch of his friends (mostly FYP Tech alums… mostly) and have a big, hardcore build weekend…

The weekend kicked off with a trip to Kings Dominion on Friday that I unfortunately had to miss because of work… I did however meet up with them (eventually… long story involving the multiplicity of Cracker Barrels in Fredricksburg and Dante providing directions to one while going to another) for dinner and later on, “Pirates of the Carribean – Dead Man’s Chest”… Possible thoughts on that later…

On Saturday, we got up early and hit the theater running… The first project was to build a couple of ramps on either side of the stage… This would have been an easy task but 1) the stage itself was angled, rising from 3 feet at the low end, to about 4 and half feet at the high, 2) the ramps also had to be angled in, in relation to the stage… and 3) we were all still pretty tired from the night before…

After a couple measuring debacles (forcing the “long ramp” to becomre the “short ramp”) we eventually got them up (as designed) and connected to the stage (with some interesting “transition” sections between level ramp and raked stage), only to discover they were more slides than ramps…

While we waited for discussions with the director on a redesign, MB and I got started on project #2… The design called for “A stump in the center of the stage, with a step to get up from the lower stage to the upper stage”… After tossing around a couple of ideas, we decided to interpret this as “A large stump with a spiral staircase carved into it, to allow actors to move safely from the lower to upper stage…”

Luckilly, there happened to be a nice, 4ft diameter round already cut out an in the scrap pile, which we decided was perfect for the size of the stairs… After a little planning, a little math, and a lot of cutting, we were able to get it assembled pretty quickly… The finished product (well, finished construction wise, it still need a lot of paper mache and some paint) is on the right… Sorry for the poor image quality, I didn’t have my camera with me, so that was taken with my phone…

While MB and I worked on that, the rest of the team was working on the other set pieces… This mainly consisted of two rolling platforms, one being a house on one side, that would rotate 90 degrees to be a tree, the other a very tall tower that then rotated to be another tree, with branch that could support two people…

After the first days’s worth of building (a good 12 hours), we retired back to Dante’s place for some much needed drinks and sleep…

The second day was much of the same… We finished up the stump staircase (I have to admit to spending a bit of time having way to much fun sculpting roots and branches out of chicken wire), then moved on the redoing the ramps for about the 4th time… Ultimately, the decision was to make them a reasonable slope (about 10 degrees), then have the transition wedge (since the ramps angled in) be a step up between the ramp and stage… This worked out pretty well and resulted in a solution that was much more compatible with the continued well-being of anyone who had to use it…

After that, there was lots and lots of finishing stuff to do, mainly covering all the exposed platform edges and braces with ply to mask it off… By the end of the second day (another full 8 hours or more), almost all of the real construction was finished, leaving mostly just painting and finishing work… All in all, I think things turned out pretty damned well, thanks to the hard work of everyone who came out….

Anyway, I titled this post “A sense of accomplishment…” because riding back to Dante’s apartment Sunday night to pick up my things and head back to C’ville, this wonderful feeling came over me… I was exhausted… my feet, my legs, and my back ached… but I felt really, really good… I felt like we had accomplished something…

…and I love that feeling…

There’s just something very satisfying about throwing yourself headlong into a project, giving it everything you’ve got (and sometimes a bit more), and emerging on the other side victorious… That’s one of the things I love about doing theater work with FYP, and with other small groups… I almost always head home at the end of the day with that wonderful sense of accomplishment…