Backstage Notes: Painters

This summer, I have been updating our readers about the progress of the construction of our Production Arts Building at our new Opera Center Campus, our move to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, and highlighting certain groups of artists that make our operas happen.  As all of us in Kansas City are complaining about the heat wave of 90 and 100+ degree days, I think there is no one happier that the Scenic Artists of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.  The Scenic Artists are our painters.  They are the group of artists that have a unique eye for color, dimension, and perspective.  These artists paint scenic items from just a few feet away, but also must have an understanding of how these items will look from the audience’s perspective up to 100 feet away.

As recently as the spring of 2006, this outdoor scene was the Scenic Artists “Paint Floor”.  This is the parking lot of an old elementary school in the West Bottoms where the Carpenters would build the scenery.  A typical day would begin with the carpenters spending 30 minutes moving the already constructed scenery outside so the Scenic Artists could start painting.  100-degree days?  Well, I guess they put on more sunscreen!  And when it rained?  Nothing would get painted and they would have to wait for another day.  This could be kind of nerve racking when you are on a deadline with opening night coming quickly towards you.  At the end of the day, the Carpenters would spend another 30 minutes moving everything back inside for the night.  Definitely not ideal working conditions, and not the best use of time if the Carpenters have to spend one hour of their day moving scenery around.

Flash forward to today, August 2011.  The Scenic Artists are working in the nearly completed Production Arts Building, in an air-conditioned room; they have a full 32’ x 63’ drop down on the floor, and still have room for multiple other projects.  The tricky part about painting is that you can only work as fast as the paint dries, so it helps to have enough room to be working on multiple projects.  The Carpenters are happily working away in the next room over, and are able to spend all of their time building scenery, and not moving it in and out of their workspace every day.

This leads me to a funny story about the Scenic Artists moving into their new room in the Production Arts Building.  Sometime in the planning process, someone was being environmentally responsible and thought to put the lights in the paint room on motion detector timers.  One of the first projects the Scenic Artists were working on was laying down a black drop on the floor.  The process involves laying the drop out, stretching it, and then stapling it to the floor so it does not move.  Well, while they were crawling around on the floor stapling the black drop down, they were below the motion detectors and all the lights went out.  With no windows in the room, and a black drop on the floor, it got quite dark!  Needless to say, the next day the motion detectors were changed out for actual light switches!

Brian Klapmeyer, Regina Welled and Gen Goering (left to right)

One thought that rarely leaves my mind – opening Turandot in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts on October 1, 2011.  As I write this blog, I take a moment to contemplate that opening night is two short months away!  A lot of progress has been made this summer, with much more to come.  Next, I will be back with a story about Costumes and the Wardrobe Department.

Backstage Notes: Moving the Scene Shop

After more than 25 years of building scenery in an old un-air conditioned elementary school in the East Bottoms, moving day arrived on June 20, 2011.  This wasn’t any ordinary move where everything could be packed up in cardboard boxes…this move involved moving 500 pound tools that needed four people to lift them!!!

The past two weeks for the Production Department and the IATSE carpenters were quite busy.  The first step was for the construction crew at the Production Center to complete the scene shop area so it was ready for move-in.  The construction crew started this task on May 23, and completed it in five weeks!!! Once the construction crew gave us the go-ahead, our scenic artists came in over the weekend and painted the floor.  They needed to do this first because once the IATSE carpenters move everything in; there will never be clear floor space again.

The next task was to pack up the Old Shop.  As I mentioned, this has been home for over 25 years and the space has accumulated many items: large tools, hand tools, lumber of all kinds, foam, and scraps of everything.  There is a process of moving and sorting…What is essential in the new building?  Is this lumber even straight any more?  Should we move it?

For years before this move, Keith Brumley worked with the IATSE carpenters to determine the best layout of the new space.  This needed to be done in advance so they could be certain that the appropriate power and dust collection was wired and mounted in the correct spots.  After everything was moved to the new space, there was little time to play.  We immediately needed to start building the Turandot scenery for our opening on October 1, 2011.

Steve Cochran has built scenery with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City for about 15 years.  One of his specialties is projects that require a steady hand and a lot of patience.  Each one of the curves on the roof header that he is holding is cut individually with a saber saw.

Our head carpenter that has built with us for almost 30 years, Jim Corcoran, stands in front of a very large wall for Turandot – on it’s side.  You can see the wheels on the right side of the picture.  When you stand this wall up, it is 18 feet tall, and very sturdy!!!  The crew is building 4 of these walls and they are the building blocks of the Turandot set.

Next week I will be back looking at the space we will be painting this large scenery in, and the artists that do this crafty work.

Backstage Notes: Preview of the Scene Shop

R. Keith Brumley looks over plans for the scene shop

Tuesday, July 5th.  As of today, our new Production Center is a step closer to being a fully functioning production facility.  Members of the crew received the first of many orders of lumber to begin building the scenery for Turandot.  Last Friday, Set Designer R. Keith Brumley gave a design presentation to the build crew.  This always happens at the beginning of the build process so the crew has the big picture of the individual items they are building.

Next I will be back with the story of how the Crew moved everything from the old Scene Shop to the New Production Center, and first pictures of Scenery being built!  Thanks you to all of our supporters who have made this happen, it’s a dream come true!!!

Backstage Notes: Orchestra Rehearsal

On Wednesday, June 8 – the Kansas City Symphony rehearsed in the Muriel Kauffman Theatre’s orchestra pit.  For 2 ½ hours, several Lyric Opera, Kansas City Ballet, and Kansas City Symphony staff members wandered the theatre, listening to every note played and assessed how it sounded from different seats.  We learned as much about the theatre as we could before we load in Turandot in September.  Here is my Top Ten List of things learned:

1. The Muriel Kauffman orchestra pit is much larger than the pit in the Lyric Theatre!!!  At the Lyric Theatre, due to space requirements, we were limited to 52 musicians in the pit.  At Wednesday’s rehearsal, there were 65 musicians in the pit, and we plan on having 74 in the pit during our opening production.

9. 

   The Kansas City Symphony from above

   There will still be some experimentation with the placement of instruments within the pit.  Is it better to have the brass on the right or left side?  Is it better to have instruments on different levels within the pit?  Through experimentation, we will find the answers by opening night!

8. Not a single audience member will have issues seeing the Titles during a foreign language opera.  There is a mini title screen on the seat back in front of each audience member.  What if you are fluent in Italian?  Well, you will have the option of turning the titles off.

7. The audience will have access to 134 restrooms on the Muriel Kauffman Theatre side of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts!  Lyric Theatre patrons had less than 30 restrooms!!!

6. 

   A look at the grid above the stage

   We will need to be careful about how many donuts we feed to the stagehands and production staff.  There is an elevator that goes all the way to the grid at the top of the theatre.  This is extremely rare as most grids are only accessible by a very narrow staircase.  In fact, you had to climb a ladder to get to the grid at the Lyric Theatre.

5. Between the Opera, Ballet, and Symphony staff members that were present at the rehearsal – all were pleased with how “clear” the sound is in the Kauffman Theatre.

4. 

   Ward Holmquist in the orchestra pit

   As great as Maestro Ward Holmquist looks standing on the podium, it will need to be taller allow him to see the singers standing onstage.  The depth of the stage is 50 feet as opposed to only 35 feet in the Lyric Theatre.

3. The performer’s dressing rooms are first class.  Each dressing room has its own bathroom and shower.  At the Lyric Theatre, there was one male restroom and one female restroom for all members of the cast and crew to use.

2. Between three different levels of support spaces for the theatre, it is completely possible to get lost in the backstage corridors!!!

1. The Muriel Kauffman Theatre is stunning from every side.  Whether you are backstage in the dressing rooms or front of house in a new, comfortable seat – it will be an amazing experience for all.

Backstage Notes: Music Preperation

Musical Preparations for the 2011-2012 season are already in full swing!  About two weeks ago, the orchestra string parts for Turandot arrived.  Elena Talley, our Music Librarian is already busy at work marking the bowings into the string parts.

Elena Talley with some of the orchestra string parts

Have you ever noticed when watching the string sections at a Symphony concert that all the bows of the violins are moving in the same direction at the same time?  Well, that’s no accident.  The process starts with the Concert Master and the Music Librarian.  The Concert Master will mark “bowings” into the entire first violin part.  The bowings tell a string player what direction to move the bow in and in what style to move the bow.  After the Concert Master is done with the part, it will move on to the 2^nd violin, violas, cellos and finally to the Principal Bass player.  The music librarian will then take the bowings and make sure it is marked in each and every string part.  This is why Elena is already working on the parts, 128 days before the opening performance of Turandot.  It is a very time consuming process

Sarah Zsohar with some of the Chorus Music

The Chorus for all of our productions has been cast and is ready to roll.  Chorus Music Rehearsals will start in mid-August.  The past few weeks, our Production Associate, Sarah Zsohar, has been busy preparing copies of music for the Chorus. Chorus members are already coming into the office to pick up their music and start learning the many notes that they will sing inTurandot.

Our principal Rehearsal Pianist and Chorus Master, Mark Ferrell, would probably not like the site of a piano on its side.  Generous donations have led us to own not one, but two grand pianos. We have a baby grand piano (donated by R. Keith Brumley) and a concert grand piano (donated by Dorothy Warenskjold) over at our Production Center.  These are used for Mainstage rehearsals, Education rehearsals, and Coaching’s with singers.  Since our Production Center is under construction this summer and there is certain to be a fair amount of dust flying about, we have put our pianos in Storage with Gerber Moving & Storage.  Dear Gerber, please take good care of them!!!

Next week, I will be busy monitoring renovations on our Production Center.  I will return on June 9^th with a story about the Kansas City Symphony’s first rehearsal with Maestro Ward Holmquist in the Orchestra Pit of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre!!!

Backstage Notes: Readying the Production Center

Many people may not know this, but the Lyric Opera of Kansas City is a very unique company in that we have our own scene shop to build scenery.  Many companies are forced to rely primarily on renting scenery.  In doing so, you lose a certain amount of artistic control of what you choose to put onstage.  In a typical season, we will design and build 1-2 new productions.  This past season, both Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro were new productions.  Beyond having artistic control over a production, sometimes we will choose to build a new production that we think other companies will be interested in renting, and that generates revenue for our company.  For example, in the 2011-2012 season, you could see our production of Carmen at Seattle Opera, La Cenerentola at Madison Opera, and Tosca at Lyric Opera Ottawa in Canada.  Yes, we are an international company!!!

Production Center - Before

Of course, all this scenery needs to be stored somewhere.  In the past, our scenery was stored in an old school down in the East Bottoms that also housed our scene shop.  Despite its sketchy location it worked just fine until last summer when part of the roof caved in and water starting leaking into the building.  So, we had to move all of our valuable scenery to different buildings.  The majority of it was stored in our Production Center.  This past week, our local IATSE Stage Crew has cleared all of this scenery out of the Production Center so construction can begin on Monday.

Production Center - After

Where our scenery should be stored was a significant point of discussion in planning the design of the Production Center and the Administrative Offices.  The final design of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City Opera Center Complex includes our scenery being stored right next to the Production Center, enabling us to rehearse on actual scenery pieces before the artists move to the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.  Again I say, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City is a very unique company to be able to do so.

Next week’s story – you know the opera needs musicians in the orchestra pit, correct?  Well, what else goes into getting an opera company musically prepared?

Backstage Notes: First Notes/First Steps

Benjamin Gulley

Have you ever wondered what the Lyric Opera of Kansas City staff does during the “down” months of summer?  What does the Production Department do when there are no rehearsals or performances onstage?  Well I, Tracy Davis-Singh – Director of Production, am here to answer these questions.  In the next 4½ months (135 days!!!), the Production Department will be clearing our warehouse building on 18^th street to begin renovations on the Production Center, listening to first orchestra rehearsals in the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, moving our scene shop from the East Bottoms to the Production Center, begin building our new production of Turandot (designed by our own R. Keith Brumley), and move 41 years of history out of the Lyric Theatre into our new home.

Kristee Haney

To start this journey from Lyric Theatre to Muriel Kauffman Stage, Lyric Opera of Kansas City Apprentices Benjamin Gulley and Kristee Haney received an opportunity yesterday that will enable them to forever say “I was the first professional singer to sing before an audience at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts!”  On May 11, the Kauffman Center hosted a private event for several of their donors titled “First Notes/First Steps”.  Ms. Haney sang a few notes of Una voce poco fa from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in the Helzberg Concert Hall.  The sound of her voice absolutely resonated in the golden wood of the Hall.  Mr. Gulley gave a preview of bigger sounds to come with Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot in the Muriel Kauffman Theatre.  I personally had goose bumps on my arms and tears in my eyes just imagining what the stage will look like and sound like on October 1, 2011 when we have our opening performance of Turandot.  The acoustics of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre are going to give the audience members the opportunity to hear opera more clearly than ever before possible in Kansas City.  Amidst all the donors, staff members of the Lyric Opera, Symphony and Ballet were several construction workers that were seated way up in the balcony during this event – observing what will occur in the buildings that they have spent 2-3 years building.

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City hopes to share our excitement for our new home with you via these regular updates.  Next week we will take a look at what happens to the scenery that we build when it is not on our stage.