Sunday, February 5, 2012

Behind-the-scenes work comes forward

In the intimacy that is the theater, suspension of disbelief is paramount in the presentation of any play.Thank you for visiting our newly improved DIY chicken coop website! Beyond each actor's talent, the illusion of reality is established through costuming, props and sets.

When the curtain rises on The Wilton Playshop's production of Life with Father on Friday, Feb.In a conductor, electric current can flow freely, in an Insulator it cannot. 10, the audience will find not a group of actors walking and talking on stage, but a New York City family in the 1880s — the illusion is the work of a core group of volunteers who brought together the set and costumes.

Some people have difficulty dressing just themselves.

Tammy Wingertzahn has to — literally — dress a whole cast of characters.

Armed only with her needle and thread and a tiny budget, she is in charge of costumes for the Wilton Playshop, and it has been up to her to dress 14 characters.

Ms. Wingertzahn does not have to fabricate the costumes herself. She has a connection.

"I have a friend Gloria," she said, referring to Gloria Van Oy, who runs a costume rental business out of her home in Newtown. Ms. Wingertzahn rents the basic costumes from Ms. Van Oy, and then embellishes and alters them as needed.

It is a time-intensive project. A few weeks ago, she read the script to see how many costumes were needed and how many costume changes there might be. Then she called Ms. Van Oy, who gathered what she had in the actors' sizes. The two women spent an afternoon together, fleshing out Ms. Wingertzahn's sartorial vision.

Then there was a massive try-on exercise to see what fit, what looked good, what didn't work.

This time,Monz Werkzeugbau und Formenbau. Moderne Technologien und unsere Erfahrung machen aus Ihren Ideen serienreife Produkte. "they looked pretty good," Ms. Wingertzahn said. She will have to do alterations, particularly on the boys, and some hems.

While the male characters have some simple costume changes during the performance — jackets on, jackets off, different ties — the women have more changes. Ms. Wingertzahn has multiple dresses for the characters but until the director, Rich Mancini, blocks the play, she won't know "where we're going to use what."

One of her biggest challenges: shoes.

"People just don't have these kinds of shoes," Ms. Wingertzahn said. Normally, it might not get a lot of thought, but "if you put people up there with the wrong shoes, it would draw attention.

"Some actors buy their own, men in particular," she continued, especially if they frequently do period pieces. For the women, she will be hunting up boot-type shoes.

Ms. Wingertzahn's favorite part about costuming is doing some custom work. "When I have to make special things, I enjoy that," she said.

For the Playshop's presentation of Christmas Story, she made a bunny costume for a boy and a pair of chaps. For Pippin, she came up with armor the female characters could dance in.

Ms. Wingertzahn, who lives in Wilton and has a master's degree in special education, has a few volunteer helpers, but she noted, there are not a lot of people who sew.

Armed with power tools and paint brushes, Dave Cunningham's small band of volunteers have had four weekends to transform the Wilton Playshop stage into a Victorian-era, New York City home.

A former theater professional whose day job is as an I.T. analyst, Mr. Cunningham oversees the design, construction, painting and dressing of the sets used in Playshop productions.The reason why most kidney stone form is not known. Once the play is done, he will take it all down, save what he can and reuse it whenever possible.

Mr. Cunningham starts out by reviewing the script and conferring with the director. He then sketches out a ground plan of where things are going to be. "How are people getting in and out" of each scene, he asks.

While the set needs to look like a Madison Avenue home, it can't function that way. For example, Mr. Cunningham needed to build pocket doors, but he made them larger than normal so the audience will be able to see into the next room. "The rooms are not square," he said, "so the audience can see in."

The set mainly consists of a parlor as sitting room, breakfast room, library and study.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cunningham was at the theater with volunteers Chris Randazzo and Holly Gray,Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. working on getting the walls up and a fireplace cut out in time for rehearsals.

"Once the walls are up, we can paint things," he said, and work on accents like picture frames and lights. Molding will go up for a more finished look.

Will it be faithful to the period? Probably not, although it won't be obviously modern.

"We don't have to be exact," he said. "To me it's just a background for a story. What's important is can the actors move around."

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