A busy week! A long day...

• We had a full run-thru of the entire show tonight as the crew watched.
• The lighting crew finished lots of projects each afternoon this week.
• The set crew finished building the king's bookcase and stocking it with fake books.
• Show opens one week from tonight!
• Lower seating in the orchestra section is almost sold out.
• New Line Array Speaker System gets tested tomorrow!
• Mr. Lowell painted the entire stage late last night! Read more about it...

First a coat of flat "Dark Red" scenepaint from Sculptural Arts Coating. This brand of water-base paint is one of the world's leading theatrical coatings, and it's made right here in Greensboro! So that means Mr. Lowell is able to drop in at the factory on his way to the theatre and get a local discount. The paint expensive, but it is highly concentrated, much like your canned orange juice, so it is meant to be cut with water in high ratios. In this case though, the dark red was only one-part water to two-parts pigment, in order to cover the black stage floor.

Then within the red outlines he added the amazing "Gold" scenepaint from Sculptural Arts. The paint shines like real gold, which will ultimately put Mr. Lowell the Set Designer at odds with Mr. Lowell the Lighting Designer, because the glare from the lights bouncing off the floor will affect the intensity and color of the lighting for each scene. The project took much of Halloween night, but Mr. Lowell was kept company by the Beatles Anthology which played three times on the Sloan Theatre speaker system!

"The world is a stage!"
By the way, this is the 16th time the stage floor has been painted since the Davison Center for the Arts opened in 2002! It's a fun and simple way for Mr. Lowell to transform the Sloan Theatre to another location, time or fantasy.

Here are some photos of past plays with unique floor styles. Can you name all these shows?! (Click on the pictures to enlarge them).

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

f)



ANSWERS:
a) Disney's High School Musical. A simple yet effective checkerboard pattern of black and white to set off the red and white costumes.
b) Picnic. Realistic grass and dirt painted on a canvas groundcloth.
c) Romeo and Juliet. A rustic stone pattern that was changed for different scenes using gobo projections.
d) The Return to the Forbidden Planet, (photo taken from catwalk). The "bridge" of a retro-style spaceship,complete with working trap doors.
e) Children of Eden. A neutral rock-style floor that changed tone for every scene with the use of area lighting in four different colors.
f) Beauty and the Beast. A grand castle interior with massive stone blocks on the floor. Mr. Lowell painted the floor in less that an hour using an old scrubbrush duct-taped to long broomstick.