For the bed side flat it was the stinkin' real pillow that only need to be stapled to the flat. For whatever reason nobody had to spare pillowcase that could be donated to cover the Wal-mart pillow that was only $2.50 to buy and so the bed flat was pretty much one of the last things to finally get finished. The way the bed flat works is the show opens up with the audience seeing Tracy laying in bed - that's why it's an aerial view and she's actually standing up straight against the flat - and then she jumps out of bed to sing "Good Morning, Baltimore" with the whole cast as she gets wheeled around briefly while she sits on the front stoop.
To start off with, the shows directors/producers showed me some pictures of what they wanted but then said, "We don't really like this so this is what we want but we also don't like this." OK then...
Basically what it came down to is that they didn't like the cartoon-ish appearance of the original picture they showed me (fair enough). Just the same, they had no other options to show me that they liked better and then when I tried to hunt down a 60s style bed in aerial perspective that a teenage girl living in working class Baltimore might sleep in? Well... that picture for reference was darn near impossible to find. *pretty defeated*
The other thing of this flat? Well... it was so flat when we painted the bed as you see it. I mean, I get it. It looks flat because it IS flat and it's so briefly seen to open the show to begin with so who cares, right? Well... I care about stinkin' nit-picky things like that and so that's why I ended up going to the length of doing things like getting a foam bed roll, trimming it to the appropriate linear perspective and then acquiring and covering it with a period-appropriate floral bed linens a teenager might use so it would look a lot more realistic as a bed that could/would be slept in. If I would have had my druthers I would have also gotten some slippers and stapled those down to the flat as well to make it seem that much more realistic. I couldn't do that though because the space on the flat didn't permit such a thing AND I had to deal with the stinkin' scoreboard for the dance competition at the end of the show.
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| It's pretty much finished except for the pillow but I kind of hate it because it just looks so plain. I gave up on it (obviously). |
Oh the scoreboard... the dreaded scoreboard...
The thing of it is, it really shouldn't have been something that took forever to finish. Someone should have been able to just put the lettering and arrows on it and then call it done. It was built, primed with white, and then it just sat waiting (and taunting me) and it was almost the last thing that was finished. And then when it finally was finished? "People" kind of fussed and said, "Isn't it too white? It's kind of plain, isn't it? It needs more color, don'tcha think?"
OH MY LAND!!!!
Seriously? Once I got it to the way it was pictured below? I seriously just as well would have been happy to carry it straight to the dumpster. It was so easy but annoying to use my time for to do and people still had issues with it! WHATEVER. Whatever.
I am pretty sure that some of the folks who fussed about it after I finished it did something more to it to make it more colorful but I kind of told them all they could do whatever they wanted to and that even included painting over it all just as long as I wouldn't be required to "fix" whatever mistake was made by someone else.
So, as far as I know, this is exactly what it looks like for the opening of the show. And if you detect my tone is becoming surly about all of this musical business you are spot on with that assessment! I will eventually reveal to you how/why that has managed to happen.
Tomorrow I will show you the most surprising item of the set dressing that I hated and then ended up sort of loving once it finally got done.
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