Change is good

I played the part of a slacker yesterday in our final design meeting. This director is very creative, and she pushes. I just wish she'd make certain realizations sooner. Mostly relationships between characters...i.e. siblings to look like siblings, lover's costumes reflect each other. They do to an extent, but I still maintain that receiving the casting and script adaptation less than a week ago set me back. Still three good but questionable costumes out of 20 some is not so bad.

That and the lack of my preferred watercolors. Yarkas just are not the same...too vibrant. Artificial. What can I say? I like muddy, diluted colors.

Despite not having color on most of the renderings, everyone was blown away by the sketches. Practice. Practice. They'll be displayed at the Hawaii Theatre during the run of the show in May. And possibly the gallery across the street in an upcoming First Friday. If I finish painting them of course.

But I'm pleased to say I have my apprentice hooked. Her attitude has done a 180. A few months back she was threatened by the heads of the program to be removed because of a negative outlook, lack of participation and tardiness. That threat got her attention, but in the last two weeks she's suddenly come out of her shell...taking the initiative. She hated me on Saturday for making her play with watercolor. A control issue...watercolor likes to do what it wants. you can coax it. You can predict it to an extent, but it's much more organic and fluid than other paints. She prefers colored pencil. Though most young designers seem to.

Yesterday she played the intern and brought a latte to the meeting for me. Along with a lapel pin proclaiming "behind every successful person is a substantial amount of coffee." Hmmm...coffee. And she proceeded to take costumes notes during the meeting, without being coaxed to do so.

Changing the theatre world one person at a time.

This afternoon will be very telling as well...the debriefing for out first show. There were a lot of issues...director and stage manager butting heads with production manager, lack of information, tempers. There will be claws out today. My favorite part of the prep for this meeting was to "anonymously" submit all comments to the production manager (how complete anonymity is possible in such a small theatre I'm not sure). That raised heckles...very few people trust the production manager enough to allow him to be the filter for comments. And in regards to the comments:

We feel that the purpose of a debriefing is for information gathering, not necessarily about implementing change.

This theatre is excellent about talking and not doing.