Savior of the World

I got a video of part of the "Savior of the World" performance on Friday night. This is the scene with Zacharias in the temple.  The "Come Deliver Us" song is so impressive with that big, full-cast sound. (And live orchestra!)



Mary with the baby.  I've seen this play three times now and they always change it up a bit. It's interesting to see what they do with the set and the staging.  JoLee told me that they ended up cutting a foot off the bottom of the arches that I painted, so they could have the angels visible over the top.  This means that people have to duck when going through the doorways, but it works out okay. 



JoLee asked me to come in and take a cast photo before the Saturday matinee. (I did this for the Broadway Revue, too.)



The cast watches Patrick and JoLee open a gift.  (Those stucco walls on the side are the ones that Helen Christensen painted for the Aladdin number in the Broadway Revue.  Hooray for re-purposing!)




Mary McGiffin and Brother Dewey, from our ward.  (Mary is my new buddy--she's a Brandon Sanderson fan, and her sister is friends with RoseE Hadden.)  Mary's husband Ben played the angel Gabriel.

It's been fun to be involved with these productions, however peripherally.  Maybe when the kids are older we can get involved with the actual performing part.

Chalking Wall

The Multi-Stake Cultural Arts group is putting on Savior of the World again.  Just a few days before opening night, I got to turn this blank wooden apron between the stage extensions into a rock wall to match the rest of the set.  I figured chalk would be faster than painting, so I got a couple of Helen Christensen's pan pastels (which we used to shade the Mod Prom sets and Fiona's library).  I believe I used the term "borrow," but Helen said she would just go ahead and submit the expense to the budget, because she knew I would use them up.  I did. 



This was definitely a quick and dirty job.  (Literally--I still have brown chalk under my fingernails.) It only took about three hours.  Hopefully good enough for set work!




The gym is all torn up right now with show preparations  (and they have the doors chained up to keep people out, which kind of throws everyone off on Sundays). That's Fiona's library back in the corner.  They still haven't found a place for it so it's just been on the stage. 



I think this is the last year they're going to be putting on this production, at least for a while. Maybe they'll do something else that I can help make sets for. It's a lot of fun to work on things like this and then get to see them in use. Like magic!

The play's the thing

...the thing which kept me busy for weeks.

This is a multi-stake production of the musical "Savior of the World." I think there were five stakes involved (a stake is a group of 9-12 wards or congregations), so they had a large pool of resources to draw from.

Due to my chronic inability to do anything quickly, the set painting ended up taking a lot longer than I expected. I know it only has to look good from a distance, but I'm up close working on it. Ah well.

The main set was these panels with arches in them, and steps on one side. They kept giving me more props to paint, as well. I mentioned earlier that I was comprising the entire painting committee. This turned out to be not exactly true, as they did get a few people out to help me one Saturday. They went to town on the arches and got the whole thing basically covered, but I just wasn't happy with the way it looked and ended up going back over everything.



The hardest thing was getting people to watch Kate while I worked. Several of the Young Women volunteered, and we also passed around a sign-up sheet in Relief Society and got some of the older sisters involved as well. By the end of it I think Kate was starting to think she lived at the church.

Here I am painting the rock that is rolled in front of the tomb--also known as "the giant pizza." I offered to paint pepperoni on it, but they didn't think that would go over well.

Kate and I went to the matinee performance this last Saturday, while Doug stayed home and graded papers. I had seen bits of the practices and was really impressed by how well they pulled everything together. They have a live orchestra and everything. Some of the music is really lovely.



There are four more performances this weekend, so you can still catch the show! And look for my name in the program, as "set artist."