The upper doodlings here were some that I did for myself while trying to figure out just how to stage this story effectively, along with a postcard, which I believe Johnny had given me for "inspiration".

At the bottom is my design for GORT the robot policeman. An actor in lower aluminium colored boots and "legs" with a dimensional Torso supported on his shoulders and his upper body all in black. The free turning head of the robot would have been attached to a helmet on the actors own head and electrified in some way that I usually left up to RICHARD HILL to figure out since he was a genius at those things. The arms would be puppet arms with manipulatable fingers controlled with rods by the actor himself or possibly by two other's in black. A lot depended on how maneuverable GORT could be in the space since he had a big part in the story.

The HIP POCKET eventually did produce my script almost a decade later, but I had nothing to do with that production and my designs were'nt utilized.

My adaptation differed from the film script in making the story a smaller character study, while de-emphasizing the 1950's "Army vs. Alien" mentality. It was the best script I had done up till then and I was proud of it.

The design features a circular projection screen in the center of the stage which could be raised up and over the platform to represent KLATU's spaceship (again NOT a "Flying Saucer"). Scenes involving the ship were to be played out on this platform and the staggered steps below it.

Stage Right ( at left in this groundplan) was used to suggest the Hospital and the Professor's Office, while Stage Left was the Living Room & Kitchen of the family that KLATU befriends in the story. All the other action was to play out downstage and within the audience as was our tradition at the HIP POCKET THEATRE.  

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL 1988 /1995

I wrote an adaptation of the film script for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL for possible production at OAK ACRES in 1988 and did some preliminary design sketches.

I left the theatre in February of that year and so this was never produced.

The model above was my stage design for that show which would have been performed on the existing platforms out under the trees at OAK ACRES.

CASA MANANA

CASA MANANA was a theatre-in-the-round built in 1957 using the geodesic dome design made famous by architect BUCKMINSTER FULLER. The building looked pretty much as in the top photo when I worked there in the 1970's.  It has since been dramatically altered and is no longer an arena stage, unfortunately.
Pictured below that is the auditorium as I remember it. The "Teaser" hanging above the stage could be raised and lowered from the center of the ceiling. Actors made their entrances and exits up the long aisles and scenery was minimal and of the "cut-out" variety so the audience could see the action.

This was a very interesting theatre to gain experience in. I worked there as an apprentice ( running scenery), a prop master and eventually as a designer, puppeteer and actor.

EVELYN NORTON ANDERSON

I found these clippings from the FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM, circa 1969 which feature the costume designs of EVELYN NORTON ANDERSON of Houston, Texas.

Ms. Anderson designed costumes for CASA MANANA Theatre in Fort Worth in the 1960s.

These are from the musical "Hello Sucker!" starring RUTA LEE. I remember seeing this and other shows she designed back then and how much her wotk influenced my own young designer's mind.

It is always a challenge to create authentic looking costume of any period without it looking obviously like "costumes". What people wear on stage should bear at least a passing resemblance to what they were on the street...if the street is in Windsor, England in 1601.

I saved myself some time on this show by incorporating costume pieces I borrowed from TEXAS WESLEYAN COLLEGE where I had lately been the staff designer. I plotted the show and did these sketches in Fort Worth before I actually went to Odessa and took the pieces with me. Falstaff and the Ford & Page couple's outfits were created from scratch in the Odessa shop. The remainder of the cast was "costumed" from the stock available there and the pieces I brought with me. The Director said at the time that I was the only designer ever to bring costumes with me!

The show looked and felt authentic and rich. I have lost the photographs I took of these lovely costumes, however so it will remain just a memory.

The last of the three shows at the GLOBE was THE LIFE OF CHRIST, written by the Director's wife no less...it was dreadful and every person who could stand in Odessa was in it! Thankfully all the costumes were already in stock or in the storage of the various churches in town, so all I had to do was coordinate everything, no design or building work involved. As soon as it opened, I left Odessa and went directly to Wichita, Kansas where the TROTTER BROTHERS job waited.

I used a lot of what I had learned working at Casa Manana and at TWC and Fort Worth Community Theatre in my work for the GLOBE and I learned a lot while there which I took on with me.  

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

After  THE DREAM at GLOBE OF THE GREAT SOUTHWEST, we went immediately into production on this farce by Shakespeare. Not considered one of the great plays, it is however quite humorous and was one of the most widely performed of his works not only during his lifetime but up to the present day. The character of Falstaff from HENRY IV parts 1& 2 was so popular with audiences of the day that it is assumed Shakespeare concocted this lively farce as a way of "bringing him back from the dead" to entertain again.

My designs were all based on period costumes from 1601 when the play was written and the production followed the traditional period staging.  In contrast to the experimental work on THE DREAM.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM was well paced, well acted and if I do say so beautifully staged. A big hit to start off the season. The actors would rotate it with the other two plays for the rest of the summer in repertory. I could'nt bask in the glory for too long as I had to start work on the next play THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR which would be costumed in accurate Elizabethan Clothing!

A funny story: When I arrived I asked how I would draw funds for my costume budget. I was given an address in Odessa and a date and time. I was to take three or four of the company of actors with me and go there. It turned out to be a mansion and our hostess was one of the oil rich wives who formed the auxillery of the GLOBE. We had "tea" with her and her lady friends and were asked about our schooling and any previous theatre work we had done...all very proper.

As we were leaving this lovely lady pulled me aside and wrote out a personal check, made out to me for $3000! This was my costume budget for the season and I was to contact her again if I needed anything more! Needless to say I was flabbergasted...but it was later explained to me ( as I signed the check over to the Theatre fund of course) that this was how things were done in Odessa.

Many a time came in the years after that when I wished I had a rich patron to whom I could go for my budgets!

I should point out what is obvious...I had a very poor camera in these days. A Poloroid one-shot on fact which is what these are. I have never been good about documenting my work, so i am glad that these still survive at all...

I think HIPPOLYTA's "Amazon" outfit here is hysterical! Give her a trumpet and she could walk right in as MEZZEPA the stripper in GYPSY!

For the long awaited wedding scene at the end of the play I dressed eveyone in the company in lustrous white robes, the wedding couple were also in silver "armor" with chains... which seemed fitting somehow. GREG WURTZ our Set Designer used four burning Tiki torches in holders along the staircases flanking the stage. In the stage lights and with the smoke from the torches, the white and silver costumes Glowed magically as Mendelson's Wedding March played. I wish I had a photo of that...it was strikingly beautiful and a fit ending to the show.

THESEUS & HIPPOLYTA, The Duke of Athens and his soon to be bride, Queen of the Amazons act as the authority base of the play and also the time keepers. The countdown to their wedding and it's attendant celebration form what passes for plot in THE DREAM.

DEBORAH BIGNESS is a truly talented actress and again one of the best to work with. We created her costumes together for this show.

I did these designs in the month prior to meeting the actors who were cast. Imagine my chagrin when my THESEUS turned out to be JOE DUNKEL ( a great guy, but a bit short of the "physicality" I'd imagined for the part!). In a strange way my costuming for him actually stayed pretty close to my original designs. He carried himself as a KIng would.

These two had all the actual costume changes in the show, and again I'm hueing to the classical Greek lines as much as possible.

The relationship between the King of the Fairies OBERON and his servant PUCK ( also called ROBIN GOODFELLOW) is at the heart of this play and seems to be Shakespeare's main interest. A similar relationship forms the center of his TEMPEST. The mistaken identities of the Lovers and the low comedy of the "Mechanicals" or guildsmen form the action and popular entertainment of the piece, but the best lines go to these two characters.

Unfortunately my design for OBERON has gone missing. These two photos of BILL HUDSON in costume are all I have now. I can see that my lightly clothed concept for the other actors doesn't work for this character. I would do it differently today ( it Was a hot summer and the actors seemed to enjoy the cool freedom, though).

My initial design for PUCK here played by DON CARR made it all the way to first dress rehearsal before we all decided that it just wasn't working. Too heavy, too much...especially the wig! The next day I hurriedly tye-dyed some tights and reworked the "snake" into something more vine-like. He wore his own hair with a simple headband of flowers...and success!

I have had lots of good ideas in my career to off-set the few really Bad ones! We live and we learn...

Once the problem of the lovers was worked out I could concentrate on the Fairies which are always the most fun. MARTA CAULFIELD was our Titania. She is one of those wonderful actors who are not only lovely to look at but also lovely to work with. They are too few and far between... My design for her costume again incorporated a nude bathing suit underneath ( at one point in the play  she even took a nude swim in the tank onstage) and the elaborate winged headress fitted into her hair. That is her actual hair, not a wig. I was amused when I saw these designs again that the original fabric swatches were still pinned to the drawings and that I had even plotted the actors makeup on them.

The stage lights reflecting off the water in the tank really added an air of fantasy to the scenes set in the wood. As in Shakespeare's day the scenery used consisted mainly of props and banners, alowing the architecture of the Theatre itself to represent the World in which the play takes place. This is fine for the Histories, Tragedies and most of the Comedies...but for THE DREAM you need something just a bit more ethereal. It puts extra pressure on the Costume designer to deliver and i felt it on this first show of mine for the GLOBE. GREG WURTZ was a master technician and we worked well together on this and the others we designed.

Although the director wanted a more traditional MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM, I did manage to sell him on a unique way to stage the play. The GLOBE stage was built with a sub-basement level underneath. Set Designer Greg Wurtz and I went out and bought the biggest cattle tank we could find, about 12 feet in diameter and positioned it directly under the trap doors in the center of the stage. For those of you not from a farm state, a cattle tank is a large steel tub about 2 feet deep which ranchers place out on their land for the cows and horses to drink from. The tank was filled with water to make a "Pond" around which the action of THE DREAM would take place.

My concept for the costuming of the show was simple: Each of the actors playing the 4 mismatched lovers and the 2 principle fairies were fitted with flesh colored bathing suits. Their respective costumes were constructed of semi-sheer diaphanous material so that initially everyone seemed to be nude under their garments. Since THE DREAM takes place in ancient Greece this seemed to be right.

For the lovers the colored gowns and robes were constructed in pieces. As they spend their overnight ordeal lost in the wood, various pieces of clothing are lost and picked up again by someone else and so on until by the plays end the lovers who were now correctly paired also were color coordinated. This is an Over-Thought process, I know...but I was young! And...it Worked!

The "Artistic Director" was a man named David MacCauley. He was a good Director for Rep...competent and not too creative.

My initial concept for A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM was to stage it as a gypsy troupe might, with rag-tag costumes and found (ie: stolen) accessories.

Hence the sketches I submited to MacCauley above.

He didn't get it.

"Traditional Costuming" was all I ever got from him...I have to admit that I was young and spoiled by the Ultra Creative environment I had just been a part of, but I girded my lions and delivered what was required. I did manage to have some influence over the staging of the show however...

I arrived a week early and the free housing promised ( the Dorms) wasn't available as yet, so I slept in this very room 20' square which would also be my Costume Shop for the next 2 months. It was located in a barn directly behind the Theatre building. Apparently all the funds raised had gone into the front of the Theatre,  the Auditorium and Stage...everything right in back was completely unfinished and in fact, barely standing when I worked there.  FUN!

Here we are engaged in that first and most important job as actors and technicians...Publicity Photographs! Although some of these people did in fact help me build the costumes for the shows, on this day we hadn't even met properly yet and were just being posed for the newspapers.

We were all very young, in or out of college and ready to take on the world. I still remember all of them with great fondness: pretending to study my design for her costumes is Marilynn Meyrick next to Me ( I would actually get a haircut at some point in the summer). To my left is Deborah Bigness, Patricia Skemp, Rhoda Clark and Peter Nichols. All of them played multiple parts in the repertory and they were all great!

( I just had a flashback...there was only one radio station playing rock music in Odessa that summer and they played "Afternoon Delight" and "Sarah Smile" every hour on the hour! I developed my drinking habit in this shop on that summer!)

GLOBE OF THE GREAT SOUTHWEST 1976

As the Casa Manana Playhouse season of 1976 came to an end in May, I was at a crossroads in my life. As sometimes happens, things present themselves to those in need such as I...

Patty Runge, wife of Dennis and all around Incredible Designer ( they both are and we got to work together again years later) had a problem. Through TCU she had accepted a job as Costume Designer for the summer repertory season at the GLOBE OF THE GREAT SOUTHWEST in Odessa, Texas. She and Dennis later got another offer where they could be together, and so she recommended me to be her replacement in Odessa.

I had never been to Odessa and had no idea what the GLOBE OF THE GREAT SOUTHWEST was, but it was a PAID professional 8 week job and I wasn't about to let any of that stand in my way.

I was to design and costume 2 Shakespeare plays: A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM  and  THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, and act as costumer for the third, a local pagent called THE LIFE OF CHRIST. I was to be paid the princely sum of $200.00 a week ( A FORTUNE to me back then) and housing would be provided free of charge. I was 20 and ready to make my move. It was a no-brainer...

So I packed up my little brown Ford pinto and made the 5 hour drive to Odessa, Texas....

These photos show the GLOBE theatre as I first saw it. It was the brainchild of an extrordinary woman named Margorie Morris who taught english literature at Odessa College. She somehow raised the funds to get this fairly accurate modern rendition of the original 1600's Globe Theatre built on the south edge of the College campus. From 1969 to this very day it hosts a summer repertory season  of the Bard's plays. My time there was Season # 8...

Last but not least, these two panels taken from Van Goghs own paintings of his simple chair and the one Gauguin used while they roomed together briefly. I kept coming back to these two images as being so representative of who these two great artists were...and who they weren't as men. I decided to use them as the sole scenic element on the upper platforms we used for Van Gogh's rooms. Much of the second act of the play took place there with these panels looming up above them as their relationship played out.

VAN GOGH / GAUGUIN was a very special production with a steller cast. I'm very proud to have been a part of it.

Coming up I'm going to go back in time a bit to my very first fully professional job as a designer at a little place called THE GLOBE OF THE GREAT SOUTHWEST in Odessa, Texas in 1976.

Again I wish I had better photos of this set as it was really impressive. At the top, BOB BALENTINE and MICHAEL GOGGINS are seen in front of the "Night Cafe" central panels that took me so long to paint.
Below is a shot of the cast at stage right with the Toulouse Lautrec puppet in his "matador's outfit"

I'd like to thank JOHN MURPHY who played Van Gogh's brother Theo in this production for letting me have the videotape of the show from which these frame grabs were taken.

These Three central panels revolved. Act One the colorful Lautrec Circus scene and for Act Two Van Gogh's NIGHT CAFE in much more somber tones as the play delves into the difficult relationship between the two artists.

These were much more detailed than the outer panels and took very much longer to paint. I was trying to be as close as possible to the original works. The Lautrec scene was again very colorful and gay and not so difficult to reproduce ( this is actually taken from two different posters he made).

The Van Gogh scene however was a nightmare to get right as his color pallette was extremely morose. I think I spent two weeks alone on these panels ( I began them when the season started in May  so that the set would be ready on time) and I really began to understand something of Van Gogh's depression and isolation as I worked. Footlight units were used on these panels at center stage during the show so that the scenes stood out from the rest of the set. I'm really very proud of the way this looked in finished form.

These three panels flanked the stage left side of the stage. Again the theme behind these was that of the onlooker to the action of the show. The Toulouse Lautrec poster images were wildly colorful and both easy and a joy to paint as there were large areas of flat color within them.
Sadly, I have no production photos of this beautiful set

These two painted panels flanked the stage right side of the stage. I carefully selected the images from hundreds I found in books, photocopied them and then transfered the images to the size of panel I had. They were all roughly 3 feet by 7 feet
The color roughs were my guide as I painted each panel. It was almost like "paint-by-numbers" only without the numbers!

MICHAEL GOGGINS as Van Gogh is seen here flanked by one of the two large projection screens used above the stage during the show. Slides of the actual paintings where used to great effect. Slides projected onto screens or scenery were usually a part of the outdoor productions.

The bottom sketch became a very large painted backdrop used for the publicity photos taken prior to the shows opening and reused during the show as a background for the band which played the music for the show in the enclosed upper area. You can see a part of this backdrop in the very first photo I posted for this production.

The upper sketch here is an elevation showing the central platform set up for VAN GOGH / GAUGUIN. I had been lucky enough to aquire a number of aluminum frames with stretched canvas on them from the Dallas Opera and I decided to make use of them in this show. The bottom picture I put together on the computer to show where the various painted panels actually were on the set. The three central panels were painted with a Toulouse Lautrec Circus scene which represented Monmatre the artists city within Paris where the first act of this play takes place. Other panels at both stage right & left were also taken from Lautrec posters and represented audience on lookers. The Chairs on the upper right platforms were Van Gogh's own paintings of the chairs he and Gauguin used during their short time living together. The upper parachute "Circus Tent" idea was unfortunatly abandoned before the production opened.

VAN GOGH SET DESIGN

I also designed and painted all the scenery for VAN GOGH / GAUGUIN in 1986. Here is a groundplan showing the Oak Acres Amphitheatre. As i've mentioned before this was  a grove of tress on the southern end of Lake Worth in Fort Worth, Texas. All of this construction had been built up a bit at a time as needed for the various shows over the years out there. I added the central "Circus Ring" and the raked upper platform at center for this show. We used an old horse stable just up the hill to the left of this space as the communal dressing room.

Here you can see the Toulouse Circus Wagon as it appeared in the actual show with the revised design underneath. The "Chat Noir" were painetd on solid canvas flats with the upper and lower elements sandwiched in between. the wagon wheels are reused from my set for the SECOND SHEPHERD'S PLAY which was done  the year before.

ZELMER PHILLIPS played Gauguin, here having a quiet drink with "Madamoselle Lautrec".

At the Hip Pocket Theatre you never really knew when you would be playing a scene with another actor or with a puppet as we loved to mix it up whenever possible. I'm glad to say the Theatre still performs in just that way today 30 years later.

The Toulouse Lautrec puppet was to make his appearances from within a circus wagon acting as a sort of puppet theatre. Here is my original sketch for the wagon. I as puppeteer would be dressed all in black with a black hood so that I would simply disappear into the black background. The puppet moved within this space on a slightly raked shallow stage. The cat and ringmaster were taken from poster designs by Lautrec himself. Although I liked this design I later used the ringmaster in another part of the set and so as not to duplicate the image I reworked the circus wagon into a simpler design.

Here the Toulouse Head is completed and the body is under constuction. This puppet had one stuffed glove hand on the right side and the other hand was my own in white glove. Toulouse was required to drink, paint and handle a number of props during the course of the show. The legs were weighted in such a way that I could convincingly "walk" him simply by twisting the controller for the head back and forth. My other hand was of course used to manipulate the head, eyes and mouth. This puppet also required a number of costume changes from city clothes to artists smock to a matador's costume and at one point was even dressed in drag as this was the way Toulouse frequently amused himself in life.

I seem to have taken no time to document my puppet building process in the past. I believe these are the only snapshots taken of the work in progress. The Toulouse puppet was constucted with eyes which could be moved side to side and an articulated mouth as the puppet had not only to speak but also to sing during the performance. The head was built up on a heavy wire armature as in the top sketch with spring controls for both eyes and mouth. This is similar to the way a ventriloquists dummy is built, but Toulouse was no dummy!

VAN GOGH / GAUGUIN Hip Pocket Theatre 1987

I've found a trove of sketches and groundplans ansd such from a variety of different shows I've designed over the decades and this is one. VAN GOGH / GAUGUIN by Johnny Simons and Douglas Balentine, originally staged back in 1978 this revival at Oak Acres Amphitheatre in 1987 was directed by Balentine. In the original production Toulouse Lautrec was portrayed by an actor. I designed this 3/4 scale puppet for the later show and performed it myself. Leah Buchanan & Paula Knowles are the fetching young things seen in this publicity photo by Michael Bodycomb.

It is interesting to contrast this PUNCH & JUDY set with the previous one designed for StoryTown USA. They are very different indeed! Betty and I finished this set just in time to send them off for the Summer season of SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK in 1983. Total production times for the 8 piece set was about 8 weeks, start to shipping. I was never able to see these in the show, but I heard that it went well and they were used every season thereafter.

Later on I will post more on the costume work that Betty & I did in Kansas. Creating mascot costumes with large character heads is quite a unique business.

Betty is really a very talented puppet maker ( just as her son, Bruce was a talented puppeteer) and her detail work on these costumes is just magnificent. I particularly enjoyed depicting the POLICEMAN as a Beafeater type, since the classic Beadle costuming wouldn't appear for another 200 years in England. The DEVIL is always the most fun to make and this version was no exception.