Behind the Music(al) :: Hairspray :: The Corny Collins desk

I pretty much had very little labor invested in this piece until the very very end. Just the same? It was a bit of a pill to deal with for the two lovely art students who took it on. The desk was built by the set builders and then it was painted by some parents who basically have spent the entire last month painting everything and then the individual letters were designed and then hand-cut from foam core board by two very dependable art students in order to echo the original design of the Corny Collins desk.

The major issue with this piece is the fact that this piece was discussed as one that wouldn't be used and would be dismantled and rebuilt because it was questionnably too large to use in the show. This means that the girls ended up making the lettering and then it was shared with us that that work might have really been done for nothing.  o_O

In the end, it was decided that there wasn't enough time to scrap the desk and we were actually able to go forth as planned. But amidst all of this? One of the L's got damaged/lost so the lettering couldn't be affixed until that issue was corrected and then when all was said and done and we thought we were ready to put the letters on? It was discovered that we still needed the words 'the' and 'show' to bookend the lettering. *ARGH!!!! IT WAS LIKE A NEVERENDING BATTLE!!!!!*

When I realized the aforementioned I took it to Google Image searches and realized that we could get away with two small signs in black/white and not have to bother with cutting out little letters like the big letters. I got two scrap pieces of foam core board and tried FOUR TIMES to make little signs that said 'the' and 'show' with a sharpie marker but for whatever reason I made them too small or too big or too messy/far from the style of the big letters. Then I just sat there being mad for a little while and thought, "Why in the world don't I just make them in Microsoft word and then paste them to foam core board and call them done?" So I did just that! And within 10 minutes the whole thing was DONE and it actually even looked kind of awesome despite all of the strife involved with the process of it. One of the big lifesavers was the fact that I could just staple the letters as you see them arranged and so there was barely any fuss getting them all on there finally.

Tomorrow I will show you the final touches of the set that only happened because I basically spent a whole work day painting with hand-selected VERY dependable students while several of my colleagues covered my classes (very last minute!) and the whole process ultimately landed me home for a very legitimate sick-day last Friday.