what light through yonder high school breaks

The setting is not a balcony with the early morning light but a rooftop garden used by the horticultural club on top of a high school. But the words still float in the air.

I could not help but see the eternal story of young lovers repeated in a new form as I watched the scene from Disney's High School musical where our two star crossed lovers steal away from the world for a moment alone. The fact that a life size poster of William Shakespeare was on the wall next to Robert Sharkey(playing Troy) and Katy Miller (playing Gabriella) probably had some influence on my thoughts. In this case it is the friends that conspire against the young couple to keep them apart. However as with all things Disney this isn't to be a tale of tragedy and woe but a happy ending where our romantic couple are able to sing the song Breaking Free. Robert and Katy have beautiful voices and their acting is very believable in the scene.

I was also watching the scene as a designer who has to create this rooftop garden out of thin air. I had originally designed the space to be played on an isolated platform six feet above the stage floor at the back of the set. On Tuesday I had just spent the past hour and a half drawing on paper and taping out the stage floor in the main theatre to figure out this isolated platform in the air. I left Jim Keeney with a basic idea of what my design was so he could start working on the masking that had to be changed above the stage before we blocked it off and then went to tape out the space in the rehearsal room for April.

As I talked with April about the platform and taped out the space she didn't like the distance or the confined feel of the isolated platform. She wanted to really play the intimacy of the scene close to the audience. April and I discussed several options and we finally put the scene on the floor level at the front of the stage with some "magical scenery" that will create this rooftop garden location. April often uses the word magic in her requests for scenery and lighting as in "I need you to create something magic to happen here." My typical response is to reply "yeah, I'll just pull out my magic wand and wave it" then presto we have scenery or lighting that will make the audience go ooohh or aaaah... (There is an old theatre joke about sending a novice theatre student to go get the sky hook to hang a piece of scenery. Many a naive freshman has walked in the scene shop and asked where to find the sky hook. This hook would hang a piece of 500 pound scenery in mid air without any support.)

The way "my magic" works is for me to put some themes and feelings and words about what we want to do into a magic cauldron I have simmering in my head for about a day before a visual image slowly emerges. I then translate that image into a piece of scenery or a light color and shadow.

I left April and walked back across the street to tell Jim that we had just totally changed what I had designed and taped out not 30 minutes earlier. As I told Jim a little about the change he immediately started thinking of how to build something magical. The difference between a designer and a technical director is that the technical director will immediately start thinking of how to build something without looking at what it is we are trying to accomplish emotionally or visually in relation to the actor with the piece of scenery. I told Jim that I would let him know when I was ready to explore the possibilities after I simmered my ideas for awhile. I wasn't there yet. What he could do was start working on the much simpler build for the platforming at the back of the stage.

The deadline for us to build these platforms is tomorrow (Friday) at 4 pm. At 5 pm April has rehearsal on the main stage for the first time with the platforms.

I have a photo in my office taken by the cast of Oklahoma with me standing at the front of the stage with my head down looking into what seems like the floor. In reality that is me looking at all of the visual images or ideas swirling around in my brain trying to distill a direction or an image that will lead me forward from that point. Even as I write this my mind returns to that balcony scene I wrote about at the beginning of this blog and thoughts are bubbling up about making the rooftop garden using elements of a balcony reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. I can feel my mind already shifting into the creative brain mode to work on this.