Welcome to Behind the Scenes, a look at the backstage activity and people that are so important to the final polished performance you see on stage.
John Miller
Technical Director
Under and Over the Sea: Digital Scenery for Little Mermaid
Behind the Scenes – March, 2024
King Triton’s court, Ursula’s Lair, and a storm-tossed Galleon; are just a few of the many scenes set under and over the sea in the Reif Theater Arts production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid JR. How do we go about designing these scenes without breaking our budget? Very often we will make use of digital scenery.
Digital Scenery can be still or moving images and can be projected onto a set or displayed on a TV or LED wall. It’s not just smaller productions using it either, “projection design” or “video design” have become an integral part of live concerts, Broadway shows, and Hollywood blockbusters! Many of the skills involved in creating a digital world also cross over with video game graphic design. It’s quite an employable field!
One of the latest and most impressive uses of LED technology and digital design is the Sphere in Las Vegas, where both the inside and outside of the structure are covered in LED lights, 1.2 million LED lights just on the exterior! It’s hard to out-Vegas Vegas but the Sphere has done just that. “Invokes pure awe,” “A new industry standard,” and “Bucket-list item” are just a few of the superlative reviews it has received.
U2 concert at the Sphere, Las Vegas.
Exterior of the Sphere, Las Vegas.
Our budget for Disney’s Little Mermaid JR. won’t quite cover this level of extravagance, but there are good budget-friendly options for smaller theaters.
Disney’s Little Mermaid Jr. is a Music Theatre International production. This means we have to apply to MTI to get the rights, or a license, to perform the show. MTI collaborated with Broadway Media to create digital scenery packages for most of the shows where MTI holds the rights. We have used these packages for several Theater Arts productions and Katie Smith, our director, and I have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses.
Broadway Media packages are relatively cheap, a digital package with multiple scenes is just $450, while renting a single stage backdrop can run $600 once you factor in shipping. Digital scenery saves money because less physical scenery needs to be built. Digital scenery helps make the “magic” happen on stage. For Disney’s Little Mermaid JR., the digital scenery is not just still images but incorporates movement and special effects. Waves move up and down, storm clouds swirl in the sky and Ursula’s wizardly spells all add to the production without extra work and expense.
Sea waves crash and storm clouds billow before Prince Eric’s ship founders.
Some drawbacks of digital scenery relate to how we project them at the Reif Center. With a huge budget, it would be great to have a LED wall at the rear of the stage. That would give you the brightest, crispest images (anyone with deep pockets out there?). At the Reif we use a projector located over the sound booth to project onto our rear cyclorama, also simply known as the cyc. The rear cyc isn’t really designed as a projection surface, so there is some loss of quality there. In addition, bright stage lighting will wash out the projected image. Katie Smith tries to keep the cast far enough away from the cyc so that we can light the cast without hitting the cyc. It’s not always possible with 75-80 kids in a production! One final problem is projecting the images from out front. Any scenery or kids that are too tall or too close to the cyc will cast shadows on the cyc where the projection hits them. Sometimes we can work around it or we just live with it. It’s more important to light the cast than have perfect looking projections.
King Triton’s court.
The lagoon.
There are design choices we make when we rent Broadway Media packages. All their packages tend to be very cartoony, which is great when we do a Disney show. When Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical JR. was selected I couldn’t see bringing myself to using their projections. Much of my inspiration for the set design came from the Broadway musical and the recent film, and cartoony was not the look I wanted. In fact, it’s the only recent production I can think of where we didn’t use Broadway Media.
Digital Scenery has changed the entertainment industry and will continue to do so as technology is continually improving and getting cheaper. Maybe someday I’ll even get that digital LED wall I want! In the meantime get your tickets to Disney’s Little Mermaid JR., it will fill up fast!
Reif Dance Company Show & Get To Know Your Tech – Melanie McCoy
Behind the Scenes – February, 2024
Dancers live in light as fish live in water. The stage space in which they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within translucent walls and above the stage floor, the lighting supports their flashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies. The dance is fluid and never static. Designing for the dance has been my most constant love. I have designed the decor as well as the lighting for a good many ballets and I have installed the basic systems with which I have worked in dance repertory. If I leave anything to posterity, it will be, I think, most importantly in the field of dance lighting.
~Jean Rosenthal, The Magic of Light
I’m sure that somewhere I still have a well-worn copy of Jean Rosenthal’s The Magic of Light. Her book was key to my growth as a lighting designer, moving beyond the mere technical aspects of lighting and seeing it as an art.
I began lighting dance on a regular basis in graduate school as the dance and theater programs were closely related. Usually dance performances have very minimal sets and often it is just the dancer and the lights. There are much fewer restrictions in lighting dance. A play you have to stick to the script; in dance, anything goes!
The Reif Dance program is very strong and typically has three performances a season, The Nutcracker, the Spring Dance production, and a Company Dance performance. What is unique about the Company Dance show is the focus on students. Co-Director Christina Anderson, “This year’s performance is about going back to the roots of our mission and showcasing the versatility of our dancers. The performance will be fun and approachable for our audiences.”
The focus on the students has always been a highlight of Company Dance. Co-Director Grace Derfler, “It is a way to showcase our seniors who are graduating perform innovative choreography of their own. Even Greg, from our backstage tech crew, choreographed a piece back in 2020! I am so grateful to be able to work with such creative minds and for my students to be able to bring the story to life on stage!” Greg loved his experience choreographing, I think mostly because he chose an instrumental cover of his favorite KISS song, “Black Diamond!”
Some of you may remember when the performance included “Dancing with our Stars.” We had “celebrities” from the community such as teachers, doctors, bankers, and politicians. They would be paired with a senior dance student who would select a style of dance, pick the music, and choreograph their duet. A panel of judges would narrow the field down to two, at which time the audience voted on the winner! The celebrities usually did a great job, although they still had to endure some good-natured ribbing from the judges!
West Side Story
Another year the production featured a collaboration between the Reif Dance Company and the Grand Rapids High School Band. The Dance Company performed selections from West Side Story with live accompaniment by the GRHS band. I mostly remember the mad scramble at intermission to set up risers for the band against the back wall behind the dancers!
For many years I did the lighting for the Company Dance performance, but as things have gotten busier at the Reif I’ve had Melanie step in the last few years. I thought this would be a great time to get to know her better!
Get to know your Tech – Melanie McCoy
Melanie McCoy
How did you come to work at the Reif Center?
I knew about this being a job opportunity in high school. My brother worked here when he was in high school and we are six years apart in age. I began working here in ninth grade in 2001. After I graduated high school and attended college for a few years, I came back and loved working here so much I never left! I have been one of the regular tech crew since around 2012 and within the last year I took on more responsibility as the Production Manager. I do quite a few more shows on my own, including both local and touring productions.
What are some of your most memorable shows, experiences, or stories?
One of the first shows I worked at the Reif Center was a touring production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The main part I remember from this show was that they came with four semi-trucks and it was the biggest show I’d ever helped with at the time.
Another show that stands out in my mind was when Ed Asner did a one-man on our stage. As students we were taught to avoid being “star seekers” and treat everyone equally no matter how “big name” they were. Ed Asner was lovely and was happy to chat with anyone. His manager had to encourage him to get moving after the performance, otherwise Ed would have stayed all night just chatting and spending time with anyone who wanted to.
Melanie and Ed Asner in 2011.
One of the crews I really look forward to working with comes with Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas Spectacular. Scooter who sets up and operates the lights, Rustin and John who set up and operate the sound. They have been here with many shows other than Rock and Roll Christmas and have become like family to us.
With all the professional touring shows at the Reif Center we get to see a lot of technology that is newer for us, and I like to check it out to see if it’s something we can use here. I enjoy shows that come through with crew patient enough to take the time to teach us techniques and skills used for their show. I love learning new things!
It’s so nice to work with groups who are so appreciative of the time we take to make their show go as smoothly as we can make it go. A simple “Thank You” goes so far to making an experience a good one!
How did you start doing the lighting for Company Dance?
One year John said, “You’re doing lights for Company Dance this year,” and that was the start of it. I remember being nervous as that may have been the first time for me to be running a show with lights and audio entirely on my own, but I’ve enjoyed it ever since! It’s a chance to have creative freedom on a larger scale.
What do you like about doing the lighting for Company Dance?
I like the opportunities the Company Dance show affords me to be able to create something and collaborate with the choreographers in constructing a cohesive vision for each part of the show. It’s something that’s basically a blank canvas of sorts to just be able to have fun with.
Melanie running sound and lights for Reif Company Dance in 2023.
Within the last year we’ve moved into the 21st Century and started using QLab for sound effects and music. Can you talk about what we used to do and how QLab is an improvement?
Prior to Nutcracker 2022 we used CDs for music for each show, splitting act I and act II onto separate discs due to length. At intermission we would have to swap discs. QLab is audio software that runs on a Mac with a visual display showing us how much time is left in a track and more detailed information for each track. A nice feature of QLab is that it, by default, pauses after each song whereas with the previous method we would have to manually pause the CD player before it would play through to the next track. Sometimes it felt like we needed an extra arm or two to run the show, with one hand on the “GO” button for lights, another hand being able to turn the page of your script and then somehow figure out how to hit the “pause” button on the CD player. QLab is the industry standard for sound playback, used by many shows, so it was the logical program for us to embrace. The move to QLab was a new challenge for me as it’s a program that only runs on Mac, which is something I’m not entirely familiar with, but now that we’ve got it going it’s hard to imagine doing things any other way! It’s also nice to be able to use QLab for different themed preshow music playlists.
Thank you, Melanie, for telling us more about you and your work at the Reif Center. Come see Melanie’s lighting for the Company Dance Show March 2nd and 3rd in the Wilcox Theater!
Winter Dance Party – 65th Anniversary
Behind the Scenes – January, 2024
In January of 1959, a twenty-four day musical tour of the Midwest began in Milwaukee. Twelve days later the “Winter Dance Party” would end in tragedy on Feb 3, 1959. 2024 will mark the 65th anniversary of “The Day The Music Died.”
Jay P. Richardson Jr.
The number one and official tribute to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper is John Mueller’s Winter Dance Party, returning to the Reif Center for the ninth time on Saturday, January 27th. I believe that is a record for return visits and indicates the popularity of this production. It will sell out!
I remember during their first few visits the Big Bopper was portrayed by his son, Jay P. Richardson Jr. Jay never knew his father, being born eighty days after he passed, but he certainly mastered his father’s look and voice! For part of each performance Jay would pay tribute to his father’s memory. Sadly, Jay himself would pass away in 2013.
My roommate Greg and I like to take road trips and we’ve often found ourselves heading through Iowa on I-35, just a few minutes from the crash site, north of Clear Lake, Iowa. After a few miles of dusty farm roads, you know you’ve arrived when you see a giant pair of Buddy Holly glasses marking the entrance to the trail! After a ten-minute walk between fields, you arrive at the crash site itself. There is a memorial at the site surrounded with coins, toys and other mementos left by visitors. There is a quiet solemnity in this spot as you contemplate the crash and the four lives it took. 
Trail entrance to the crash site.
Greg and I have also visited the nearby Surf Ballroom, where the three stars performed for the final time. The day we visited they were setting up for a Sevendust concert and I think “technically” we weren’t supposed to go into the ballroom. Well, we had come a long way so we slipped in, just for a picture or two!
Greg in the Surf Ballroom before we got kicked out!
Surf Ballroom
Greg and I must have looked like we were part of the crew, because they left us alone for a good 10-15 minutes before someone with the band asked if we were on the crew. After fessing up, they told us we had to leave. Just a good reminder that dressing in black and throwing on a lanyard or carrying a wrench can grant you backstage access!
John Mueller as Buddy Holly.
John Mueller created the Winter Dance Party tribute in 1999 after having performed in “Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story.” The show has toured around the globe, including all of the still existing venues visited by the original tour.
John is noted for his personification of Holly on stage, he was even once accidentally paid with a check made out to Buddy Holly!
Ray Anthony as Ritchie Valens.
Ritchie Valens is portrayed by Las Vegas legend Ray Anthony. His love of Rock ‘n’ Roll began with Elvis. His connection with Ritchie Valens solidified after the film “La Bamba” was released. Almost immediately, people noted his uncanny resemblance to Lou Diamond Phillips who portrayed Valens in the film. That was soon parlayed into regular show stopping performances!
Linwood Sasser as the Big Bopper.
The Big Bopper is portrayed by Linwood Sasser, who is based in Los Angeles. I discovered he worked as Louie Anderson’s stand in on the comedy “Baskets.” You may want to avoid discussing the Royal family with him though. In 2018 he appeared on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, leaving with $5000 after missing the $10,000 question. The question was, “Ineligible to be called “Princess” as she has no royal heritage, Meghan Merkel was given what tongue twisting title when she married Prince Harry? A: The Duchess of Sussex, B: The Marchioness of Merseyside, C: The Baroness of Bedfordshire, D: The Viscountess of Worcestershire.” After Linwood used his 50-50, he incorrectly picked C. Do you know the correct answer? It is A: The Duchess of Sussex!
The Winter Dance Party has been one of our most requested shows at The Reif and I’m certain it will sell out, don’t miss this electrifying performance!
Rock ‘n’ Roll Xmas Spectacular
Behind the Scenes – December, 2023
Ahhh, Christmas! When the holidays begin to stress you out you can always enjoy some mellow Christmas music like Silent Night or White Christmas. But for those that like their holiday music a little louder, make your way to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Xmas Spectacular at the Reif Center for some great guitar riffs, screaming vocals and riotous drum solos!
Abbreviated ‘RRXS,’ this production has returned to the Reif Center many times with a mixture of familiar classics and new material. Whether they put a rock ‘n’ roll spin on a classic Christmas carol or they add Christmas lyrics to a classic rock song, you can always expect superb musicianship!
We’ve had RRXS so often that all I need to do is confirm what time load in is and schedule our crew! They bring nearly everything, their own set pieces, audio and moving lights.
Their audio person, Rustin, takes a couple of our crew to crank up sound towers on either side of the stage for their speakers, run cable to their Front of House sound board, and set up microphones.
Scooter is in charge of lights. He’ll take a couple of our crew to hang moving lights over the stage, set up his light board in the booth, and tie into our lighting system to use out lights for some band specials and colors.
The old RRXS set. If you look closely, you can see the floor stanchions the letters are mounted on.
The set doesn’t arrive until later in the afternoon when the band arrives. The first few years their set was a pain! They had these giant RRXS letters in back that were set up on floor stanchions and it was difficult to get them just right. Now, the letters hang from a pipe. On either side of the stage they had these giant fake speakers. Before they were all made out of wood and heavy and hard to put together. Now the fake speakers are just cloth over a collapsible frame that assembles easily.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the tremendous amount of confetti and streamers they use! The big finale has two or three big blasts from confetti cannons on either side of the stage. They usually have a couple of handheld cannons too, as well and streamers and balloons. I think they are tied with Spamalot for the sheer quantity of confetti, but RRXS certainly has the record for distance as they get confetti all the way to the back row and up on the catwalks! You can imagine the high school custodial staff love this… The best way they have come up to clean it is to get a leaf blower and start at the back row, blowing all the confetti down to the front row where it can be shoveled up.
The balloons for the finale are all blown up during load in by the Reif crew; luckily they have a couple of machines for that! Before our renovation, the balloons were in a balcony above the booth until crew tossed them out into the audience. Since the renovation, the balloons store in the balconies on either side of the audience seating. I think early on they might have gotten some cheap balloons and they would pop during the show. Most of the time not a big deal, it’s a pretty loud show. But, there is a soft instrumental of Silent Night near the end of the show, and invariably that’s when a couple of balloons would go off! They have a better quality balloon now, but when we moved the balloons to the side balconies, they started to pop again. It was from them rubbing up against the wood siding that surrounds the auditorium! Now we put up plastic sheeting over the wood to protect the balloons. So far that has worked pretty well!
Here come the balloons!
As much as you prepare for every eventuality, there are just some things you can’t anticipate. This next story I wasn’t even here for, I had gone back to Alaska for Christmas, leaving RRXS is the very capable hands of our Reif crew.
At the top of every RRXS performance they have a short video. We drop in the screen in front of the musicians, play the video, and take it right back out as they launch into their first song. After 30 some odd years the gears on the screen motor had completely wore down, and it chose that moment to fail, leaving the crew unable to raise the screen! The musicians tried to pull the screen to the side and get in front of it, but the screen was still massively in the way! Understandably, the crew was somewhat frantic, eventually a couple of them got up in the catwalk and pulled the screen up by hand and were able to tie it off. It wasn’t pretty, but the show must go on! It took a few months before we got a replacement as both the screen and the motor were irreparable. Hopefully this one will last for 30 years too, or at least until I retire!
When the screen won’t go up, but the show must go on!
I can’t guarantee anything like that will happen this year, I’m hoping it doesn’t, but it’s a live experience and almost anything can (and does) happen!
This year’s performance is sold out, hope you got your tickets early.
Santa’s Village & Get to know Greg Johnson
Behind the Scenes – November, 2023
I’m a Grinch! I have a lot more in common with Ebenezer Scrooge than Bob Cratchit. If I were in a Japanese monster movie I’d be Christmaszilla! I exaggerate (slightly), but when Shantel announced that she wanted to do a Santa’s Village at the Reif Center, I was not enthusiastic at first.
Shantel has wanted to do a Santa’s Village at the Reif Center for a long time. She says, “Santa’s Village is a festive kick-off to the holiday season. The focus is on children and seeing the wonder and excitement in their eyes this time of year. It’s fun to let the children choose their gifts for a parent or grandparent. When I first participated in an event like this many years ago, my 4 year old son chose a gravy boat for his dad. He heard the word ‘boat’ and he had to have that for his dad.”
Santa’s Village takes over the entire Reif Center. The heart of it is in the Ives Studio Theater where we set up the Kids Shoppe. This is where Santa’s Elves help each child pick out a gift for a loved one and have it wrapped. Mom and Dad can take a quick walk through then enjoy a cup of coffee and a cookie in the lobby while they wait.
In the lobby kids can take a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus and get a cookie and lemonade from the café. In the theater classroom children can complete a craft project then head into the Wilcox Theater where Reif Dancers will greet everyone and pose for pictures on the Nutcracker set with the kids.
The crew’s main responsibility is to turn the Ives into the North Pole, and I chose to delegate this important task to Greg and Melanie. Besides needing to set up tables for the gifts and a wrapping station they were given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to do. They knocked it out of the park with string lights, gobos and giant inflatables.
Santa’s Village 2022
Greg has really taken Santa’s Village to heart. He’s a big thrift store fanatic and all year long he’s been buying up more Christmas inflatables and other surprises to make this year’s village even bigger and better. What better time than an article about Santa’s Village to learn a bit more about Greg!
How did you come to work at the Reif Center?
My journey to the Reif began in early 1980. I was watching a TV show on PBS called 3-2-1 Contact because my favorite band – KISS – was going to be featured on it. During the program, they were showing various parts of the load-in for a KISS concert. I was fascinated and thought it would be cool to do that someday. A few years later I graduated high school, did a stint in the Navy, and then worked in the restaurant industry for about 20 years. I met John, the Reif Technical Director, around 2006 or so. When I found out what he did for a living, I told him that I’d love to be a roadie for a day. I got my chance in Sept 2007 when John asked if I’d like to work the Pink Floyd Experience show. That was a great show to learn the ins and outs of being the local crew. They brought their own lights, sound, video, trussing, instruments, and other equipment and hauled it all in a huge 48-foot trailer. During the load-in and load-out, the driver of the semi-truck noticed my attire – a KISS hat and KISS shirt and asked if I was a fan. I replied that I was – I joined the KISS Army back in ‘76! He told me that he had been in Los Angeles a week or two before and knew someone at the KISS warehouse who gave him a tour of it. His son is a fan and the person who gave him the tour gave him some KISS merchandise. After chatting for a while the driver went to the truck and brought back a hoodie and a travel mug for me! I had an AWESOME time bein’ a roadie for a day. Over the next couple of years, I would come up several times during the season volunteering my time to work shows and learning a lot in the process.
Greg on Magic Carpet
Paula Poundstone and Greg
What are some of your most memorable shows, experiences, stories?
KISSIt! A KISS tribute band. We had to create a KISS-like stage for their show. One of the things we did was to make the lighted logo. I got to keep the logo – minus the lights – after the show. I keep it in my KISS collection at home.
Paula Poundstone. Paula usually posts a picture on her social media pages of the green room chair at every venue where she performs. One time, a few months before she was scheduled to perform at the Reif, she posted a picture of the lighted mirror in a green room. All of the bulbs except for one were burned out. I mentioned to John that we’ve already got that green room beat – all of the light bulbs in our lighted mirrors were working. Somehow, we decided to go the extra mile and decorate the green room for her stay here. We found out she had 16 cats at home. To make her feel at home, I used a cat theme (along with her favorite candy bars and some Ring Dings!) to decorate the green room. By the time her show date arrived, I had collected about 3 totes worth of cat decor. Paula loved what we did with our green room. A week after the show, we got a postcard from Paula thanking us for our great hospitality. The postcard was a picture of one of her cats. Paula appeared on our stage a couple of years later and by that time I had several more totes of cat decor to decorate the green room with. We got another postcard from Paula. Just a couple of months ago on X (Twitter), Paula responded to one of my comments on her post and said that she still uses the tea towels that were given to her from one of her visits here! Of all the artists I’ve worked with, she’s always been my favorite.
With the help of the student dancers and a couple of instructors, I was given the opportunity to choreograph a dance piece for the Reif Dance Company Show in 2019. I was working backstage for that show and at one point during one of the performances of my dance piece, I heard an audience member say “WOW!” That felt AMAZING!
Most of my work is done backstage or out of sight of the audience. But there have been a few times when I’ve been on stage. For a Reif Dance production of Aladdin, I played the Magic Carpet. Once I was asked by the director of the Grand Rapids Players production of The Music Man if I’d make a small appearance, which I did—I was one of the people who brought trouble to town. Finally, I got to be a magician’s assistant for a magic show.
What do you like about setting up for Santa’s Village?
For most of the shows and other events that we work on, the set designs are clearly defined – stage plots, pictures, etc., but every once in a while, the techs get the chance to show off their creativity. For Santa’s Village, Executive Director Shantel Dow and Marketing Director Amber Vanous had an overall vision of what they wanted each part of Santa’s Village to be and look like but didn’t know exactly what could or couldn’t be done to accomplish some of it. A couple of weeks before the event, they had a meeting with a few of us on the tech crew where they talked about Santa’s Village and walked us through each station. Between all of us, each of the stopping points in Santa’s Village except for one became clearly defined as to how it was going to be set up and the decor needed for it. The biggest stopping point and the one I became most excited about was the Ives Studio Theater transforming into a North Pole shopping area. Shantel and Amber only had a few requirements for the shopping area but other than that they basically told us to have fun with the room. That is music to my ears!
Along with some ideas brought up during our meeting, Melanie McCoy, Buzz M, and I brainstormed and came up with a plan for the room. It took us a day (or two?) to get everything set up in the Ive’s. Well, everything except for one corner of the room. Because it was empty, it looked like a huge corner to fill. We had used just about everything we could find around the Reif that looked either Christmasy or wintery to help fill the room – old candy canes from Nutcracker performances gone by, periaktoi with storefronts on them, and some Christmas lights and a tree spinner from home, but that corner still went unfilled, the day before the event. I decided to go to a few stores in town and see if I could find some sort of Christmasy giant inflatable. I got a 12-foot snowman inflatable at the 2nd store I went to, brought it to the Reif, and set it up in the corner. That completed the shopping room! With Santa’s Village being a great success, the Reif decided to do it again the following year. One of my hobbies is going to thrift stores, and garage and estate sales. Over the past year, I’ve found a dozen more inflatables for Santa’s Village!
Greg at meet & greet with KISS
You’re known as that KISS guy at the Reif? Any good KISS stories?
Because of working at the Reif, I was able to be on the local crew at the DECC in Duluth, MN for KISS in 2016 on their Freedom To Rock tour! Almost 40 years after first seeing 3-2-1 Contact, KISS performed on a stage that I helped put together. That’s my favorite KISS story. That story slightly beats out the story of me talkin’ to Paul at his house or the time I did a meet & greet with KISS!
_____________________________
Thanks for telling us more about yourself Greg! I can’t wait to see what you and Melanie come up with for Santa’s Village this year!
As for me, wish an old curmudgeon some Christmas cheer. Maybe I’ll avoid a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future and maybe my old shriveled heart will grow three times larger!
Objective of Lighting Design
Behind the Scenes – October, 2023
A dazzling display of fireworks, a fading sunset, a raging fire or an evening sky full of stars. These are all moments from our lives and moments I’ve had to recreate on stage using stage lighting and my background in lighting design. Next month I will be lighting over 80 kids in the Reif Theater Arts production of Matilda Jr! In this Behind the Scenes I’d like to discuss some of the objectives of theatrical lighting and how I’ll apply them to Matilda Jr and tell you a bit of my journey that brought me to the Reif Center.
There are five main objectives in Lighting Design.
– Visibility
– Revelation of Form
– Composition
– Mood
– Information
-Visibility
The most basic of our lighting objectives, for the audience to see the actors and activity on stage. And not just in silhouette or dimly, when we speak of visibility most often we are referring to lighting faces. To light faces brightly we use front light aimed at the stage from the catwalks that hang over the audience.
When lighting productions with young children I tend to use more front light, Mommy’s and Daddy’s want to see their little angel’s faces! Matilda Jr will definitely have its bright moments especially during some of the production numbers that have the most kids; “Miracle”, “When I Grow Up” and “Revolting Children.”
A brightly lit scene from Annie Jr with front light on faces.
Photo by Jennifer Mariano
My first paying theater job was as the Master Electrician at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks theater program where I received my BA in Theater and Minors in History and Education. While it sounds fancy a Master Electrician is just responsible for taking the light designers plot and hanging and cabling it, I have no actual electrical training! After a year of learning about lighting fixtures, dimmers and circuits, I began to design lights for university productions, with some of my earliest lighting designs being A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men and Little Shop of Horrors.
-Revelation of Form
This lighting objective introduces multiple sources and colors of light to create a more textured dimension to the actors on stage. Having all front light can wash out and flatten the features of the face. By introducing Side Light, Back Light and Down Light we can restore dimensionality to the bodies and faces and set them apart from the background. By using color we can create shadows of that color to enhance features or establish mood.
In Matilda Jr I will use multiple sources and angles of light to bring dimension to the stage and actors. I expect in the song “Bruce” to use red and purple downlights combined with bright side light to feature the dancers in this big production number!
A scene from 12 Dancing Princesses. Strong no color side light from a low angle combine with a purple down light to highlight the dancers form and faces.
Photo by Jennifer Mariano
After UAF I worked as the Master Electrician for Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska. My lighting design highlight while working there was designing the lights for the world premiere of Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz. It’s a very personal story for Paula and I remember after she saw it for the first time she broke down in tears and ran across the street to a bar for a drink!
After leaving Perseverance, I ended up in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, not far from Tupelo where Elvis grew up and Myrtle where my Dad grew up! It was in Mississippi that I began wearing shorts year round!
-Composition
Just as the director and choreography try to create pleasing stage pictures, the lighting designer tries to create pleasing lighting pictures without sacrificing visibility and form. I often do this by using gobos to project patterns on the stage. The designer can also use lighting to direct the audience’s focus to different parts of the stage.
I’ll certainly be using break up and leaf patters gobos in Matilda Jr. I believe there isn’t a show that can’t be enhanced by using gobos! There are also several scenes in the library where I’ll be shifting the audience focus between Matilda telling the Acrobat Story and the actors acting out that story.
In this picture from Moana I’m directing the audience focus to the entrance of the dancers up stage left. Photo by Jennifer Mariano.
It was at the U of M that I began designing lights for dance productions. Lighting dance is still one of my favorite things because you can you can be much moodier and dramatic with the lights. For dance lighting you almost always have lighting booms on either side of the stage. These are just vertical pipes in floor plates with lighting fixtures shooting across the stage. Most typically, we will place fixtures at a shin position, just above the floor, a mid position at about waist level and a high position around head level. These angles give you dramatic lighting effects for dance and highlight the dancers forms.
-Mood
What is the mood of the scene? Happy and cheerful or Sad and gloomy? The lighting designer can enhance that mood with lighting. Warmer colors tend to suggest happier moods while cool colors suggest sadder ones. With the advent of LED lighting we have lighting fixtures that can create nearly every color we could want. But in most of our lighting fixtures we insert a colored filter, or gel, at the front of the instrument. There are hundreds of different colors but lighting designers tend to have their favorites, mine is Rosco #99 – Chocolate! It sounds tasty but it’s also a great color to create sepia tones on stage. I’m not sure I’ll be able to work Rosco #99 into Matilda, but I’ll try!
This opening scene of Moana helps set the mood for the show as the narrators and dancers tell the Ancestor story and their connection to the sea.
Photo by Jennifer Mariano.
After grad school I applied for every theater job I could find! One of those was in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, but after not hearing anything for the longest time I figured someone else must have been hired. Then one fall day in 1996 I get a call from David Marty. Apparently, the reason I hadn’t heard anything was that the Reif Center was between Executive Directors. After David was hired one of his first tasks was to hire a Technical Director. At the time there were just a couple of high school kids doing all the tech work and one of them had just fallen off a ladder and broken his ankle! I flew in for an interview just before Thanksgiving, and before I left I had been offered the job! The first production I worked on after I started was The Nutcracker.
-Information (Scene Setting)
Lighting design can tell the audience about the location, seasons and time of day. Is it an interior living room or an exterior forest? Is it summer or winter? Is it night or day? Sunrise or sunset? All of these can be conveyed through effective lighting design. In Matilda Jr I’ll use leaf gobos to suggest a sunny park outside and I’ll use string lights and specials to suggest circus lighting.
That first production of Nutcracker there was no opening party scene, just the snow dance and then the Act II Land of Sweet dances. There were no set pieces and no time to build any, so I ordered a bunch of different gobos! Snowflakes, Christmas Ornaments and Pine Trees all helped set the scene for the Snow Dance, Sugar Plum Fairy and Waltz of the Flowers. Our Nutcracker now has sets and drops but I still have fond memories of my first Reif Center Nutcracker!
Moon and tree gobos help set this cemetery scene from Cinderella. Photo by Jennifer Mariano.
Matilda Jr will be a fun show to light and I’m looking forward to it. I hope as audience members you will take notice of how we fulfill the lighting objectives of visibility, form, composition, mood and information.
Reif Theater Arts Presents: Matilda JR. Tickets
Matilda Jr Set Model
Riders in the Sky
Behind the Scenes – September, 2023
A cold December, day many years ago, I checked my phone messages and heard a familiar voice, “Is this the guy who runs sound and collects all the Riders stuff? I’ve got a snow globe that Ranger Doug says you need to have.” It was a message from that face slapper extraordinaire, Too Slim, from Riders in the Sky!
Riders in the Sky are a consistent crowd pleaser, appearing at the Reif Center 8 times over the last 25 years. They are America’s premier Western Heritage band, members of the Grand Old Opry since 1982, members of the Western Music Hall of Fame, multiple Grammy winners, had a seven year run on NPR with ‘Rider’s Radio Theater’ and have released over 40 albums! But the real reason we’ve had them so often is that the powers that be like to keep me happy, and they know that Riders in the Sky is my favorite band!
Mike and Conner Burnette with Riders in the Sky. Little Conner picture from 2001 when he was in the audience, big Conner picture from 2020 when he was on the crew.
Mike has hosted Riders in the Sky a few times as well. As you can tell from this photo, he has raised his son Conner in The Cowboy Way!
I haven’t always been a Riders fan. I grew up in the wilds of Anchorage, Alaska, and between taking care of the dog team and repairing our igloo I didn’t have much time for music. It wasn’t until I left Alaska to go to graduate school in Mississippi that I was introduced to the Riders. One summer in the early 90’s a grad school friend of mine and I were working a theater summer camp in Fairbanks. We drove from Mississippi to Alaska, and back, in his trusty Chevy.
From Seattle, we decided to drive non-stop to Texas! I remember getting very little sleep as we drove straight through over the 30 hours or so that it took. Back in those olden days, his truck only had a cassette player and we didn’t have much of a selection to choose from. One cassette we did have was “The Cowboy Way” from Riders in the Sky. My friend Mike was a fan from long back, being from Texas and all, and we practically wore that tape out on our drive! It’s a great live album and includes songs that are still my favorites like “Lonely Yukon Stars,” “Miss Molly,” and “The Salting of the Slug.”
A couple of years after graduate school I started at the Reif Center and shortly after that Executive Director at the time, David Marty, brought up the Riders at a selection committee meeting. I had to play it cool of course, but pushed it through the selection committee so that I could meet my idols!
I have a few of favorite (and not so favorite) memories. They joke about it on stage, but Woody Paul does always disappear! He usually finds a quiet spot for a nap. Woody is also the mechanic of the group and there’s been a few times the night has ended with him under the Winnebago fixing something!
A bad day on the road for the Riders Winnebago!
2008 Riders in the Sky greenroom signature.
A selection of the author’s Riders in the Sky collection. Note the snow globe front and center!
One year I filled the greenroom with all the Riders swag and memorabilia I’ve gathered over the years. I think they were impressed. I’m sure that led to that voice mail and a Riders in the Sky snow globe for my collection!
Candy Cane Attack!
This next memory I’m not so proud of. The Riders were here for a Christmas show and I thought it would be a great idea to add these 16’ tall wooden candy canes from our Reif Dance Nutcracker props to the stage. I still insist that Too Slim brushed up against one as he came back on stage after changing out of his Side Meat persona, but the audience and crew watched in disbelief as it slowly toppled over, nearly taking out the entire band, or at least one or two of them. Those canes were never seen again. Rumor has it that they ended up in a bonfire at David Marty’s house!
I’ve also enjoyed learning more about them over the years. Doug Green (Ranger Doug) has a master’s degree in literature and is a well-regarded Western Music historian. Fred LaBour (Too Slim) has a master’s degree in wildlife management. Paul Woodrow Chrisman (Woody Paul) has a PHD from MIT in theoretical plasma physics—his thesis was “Inertial, Viscous, and Finite-Beta Effects in a Resistive, Time Dependent Tokamak Discharge.” Joey Miskulin (The Cowpolka King) has been performing professionally since 11 and started touring with Frankie Yankovic at 13.
If you know Reif tech crew member Greg Johnson, he has a little thing for the band KISS, and on our road trips we’ve visited many KISStoric sites. We even met (well, stalked) Paul Stanley at his house one time! If you haven’t heard the story, ask Greg sometime! I’ve never stalked any of the Riders but one trip through Nashville we did stop at the location of Herr Harry’s Frank N’ Steins, where Riders in the Sky had their first performance in 1977! It’s now a religious bookstore.
Former location of Herr Harry’s Frank N’ Steins, Riders in the Sky first appearance, November 11, 1977.
I’m looking forward to Riders in the Sky making their ninth appearance at the Reif Center on September30th. I may or may not get a new story out of their visit, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get something new for my collection!
Student Matinees – Dinosaur World Live!
Behind the Scenes – August, 2023
Hard to believe that it is already August and everyone is getting ready for back to school! At The Reif it means preparing for the thousands of students who will be traveling here to see one of our eight different Student Matinee performances. Attending these daytime performances are schools from within a 90-mile radius of Grand Rapids including Duluth, International Falls, Aitkin and Bemidji! Teachers love Student Matinee performances because they fulfill curriculum requirements and the kids have a great time! One very popular show is Dinosaur World Live, which we’ve had at The Reif twice before. Here is what it takes to get this show ready by February 9th, 2024.
In September of 2022, Executive Director Shantel Dow shows a promotional video from Dinosaur World Live to our selection committee. Many of them had seen the show previously and the committee enthusiastically supported bringing them back! By October their agent accepts our offer, issues a contract and provides a Technical Rider that covers all their audio, lighting and stage needs.
In December of 2023 I contact the Company Manager that tours with the production. We review the Technical Rider and see if there are any changes. We discuss what time load in will be and how many local crew are needed. This is often the time we here the dreaded words, “Oh, it sounds like you got the OLD tech rider!”
Tech Prep, February 6, 2024, 3 days to performance
Dinosaur World Live requires some special lighting. We hang extra lights with leafy jungle gobos to cover the stage and audience. A gobo is a metal template placed in a lighting instrument that then projects that pattern onto the stage. A lighting special is needed down stage center. A lighting special is a fixture used for a single purpose, as opposed to a fixture that is part of a stage wash.
Jungle Leaf Gobo
The T-Rex terrorizes the audience! Note the gobo pattern on the floor.
February 9th, 2024 –Day of Show
Load In, 6am –6 hours, 30 minutes to performance
It’s dark and it’s cold. The sun won’t come up for another hour and a half and if we’re lucky the temperature will be in the positive double digits. Myself and our Reif crew of Greg, Melanie and Buzz are standing by for the 55’ semi to arrive and the bus with the cast and crew of Dinosaur World Live. We get our coats, gloves and hats on and wait until the last minute to open the garage door and begin unloading the truck. Dinosaur World Live travels with 4-5 LARGE road cases in which all the dinosaur puppets are stored. These aren’t just their road cases, they also become part of their set on stage.
Assemble Puppets –6:30am –6 hours to performance
After the truck is unloaded the crew helps the puppeteers unpack and assemble the dinosaurs. Road cases are placed on stage and additional set pieces are added like banners and a dinosaur egg incubator.
Load in complete! The large crates are the road cases that all the dinosaurs travel in.
Focus Lights/Set up Sound –7:30am –5 hours to performance
I sit at the light board and bring up lights while Greg and Melanie focus lights. If we prepared well our stage washes should already be done and all we need to do are focus our lighting specials. Afterward I make sure that the receivers for the wireless microphones are properly set up and their audio computer is set up and working.
Break -8:30am, 4 hours to performance
It’s already feels like a long day, so everyone takes a break and enjoys some snacks provide by our box office manager who is in charge of hospitality. I’m hoping for coffee and jelly donuts!
Write Light Cues –9am –3 hours, 30 minutes to performance
Melanie and Kat, the Dinosaur World Live Stage Manager, sit down at the light board and they program the 20-25 light cues that they need for the show.
Sound Check –10am –2 hours, 30 minutes to performance
Performers put on their wireless microphones and Kat, who is running sound, checks to make sure they all sound good. I stand by in case she needs any assistance.
Warm ups –11am –1 hour 30 minutes to performance
Every performance has a warm up for the cast. It could be a vocal warm up for a musical or a physical warm up to get the blood pumping. The London based performers in Dinosaur World Live have a unique warm up. They tape out a small grid on the stage, get out a soccer ball and play some games for 30-40 minutes!
The Reif’s Butler
House Opens –12pm –30 minutes to performance
Melanie puts the stage into our lighting preset, Kat begins to play some soft jungle noises, and I let the ushers know we can open the doors to the auditorium. Out in the lobby Gary puts on his white gloves and top hat, opening the door and greeting the students as they arrive.
Shantel tells the story of how Gary became known as the Reif Butler, “While Gary was volunteering at the front entrance welcoming students to a Class Acts show, he was holding the door open and a young 2nd grade student said, “WOW, this place is really fancy, they even have a butler!” Gary really gets into it and the kids love him!
Performance -12:30pm
It’s show time! 700 kids pack the Wilcox Auditorium and Katie E. Smith, our Education Director, steps out to welcome the kids and go over performance etiquette. She always takes a moment to get a selfie with the audience! The house lights dim, and the show begins!
February 18, 2022 –Dinosaur World Live Audience Selfie
But wait, there’s more! The 12:30pm performance is just the first show of the day. After the show is over, we go away for a few hours to rest, then come back for the 6pm show. The show is over by 7pm and it’s time to pack everything up, load the truck, and send the cast and crew on to their next venue. The day ends as it began, in the dark and cold as the truck pulls away from the loading dock!
Most of our School Matinees only have daytime performances and they are open to public schools, private schools, and home school students, but not to the general public. A few of them, like Dinosaur World Live have both a student performance and a public evening performance. Check out our website for more information about our Student Matinees.
9 to 5 – Set Design
Behind the Scenes – July, 2023
Nine to Five is a classic 1980 workplace comedy that inspired an office workers anthem that became a platinum certified hit for Dolly Parton. In the early 2000’s Parton wrote 16 new songs for 9 to 5: The Musical, and this summer The Reif will present a talented cast of local performers in this musical production.
Director Katie Smith asked me to design the set. I agreed but was a little apprehensive, because stage shows based on a movie tend to have many locations requiring quick transitions between them.
I have an established order when I design a set; script, research, modeling.
Every show begins with a close reading of the script, looking for the time period, locations, scene changes and furniture needs. The script begins by stating the year is 1979. This firmly sets the musical as a “period” piece, meaning looking for furniture and props of the time as well as a set that feels of the late 1970’s.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that while there were a great number of locations in the script, most of them were various areas around the office, the secretary bullpen, Hart’s office, the Xerox room and the coffee area. Still there were some significant scenes set outside the office, Violet’s living room, Hart’s house and the hospital. There would still be some tricky scene changes but an idea was starting to formulate in my head. Katie has already mentioned wanting to use “portals” in the set. This is just a fancier way to replace the black legs and black borders that surround the stage. Instead we build (in our case they are already built, another bonus!) wood flats that will surround the stage. I was starting to think of using the portals and filing cabinets to create an office “surround” that would remain in place the whole show!
I was ready to conduct some research. In the olden days (early 90’s in graduate school) I once designed a set for a show set in a gas station. I found myself driving the back roads of Mississippi looking for old gas stations and asking the owners if I could come in and take a few pictures! Now I just hit the computer and began looking for 1970’s office pictures. I also researched 1970’s design motifs, looking for a pattern to paint on the portals. I found “70’s lines,” a pattern that screams 1970’s but would also be relatively easy for the painters to paint.
While I didn’t have everything fleshed out I felt like I was ready to begin a model. Some set designers work by sketching and painting set renderings. I prefer a simple model with little attention to color and fine details. For me the model is the point to see what the set will look like on stage while it’s still easy to make changes. My usual materials are foam board, poster board, straight pins and glue. Also a good sharp modeling knife and most important of all a triangular scale ruler! The scale ruler allows you to quickly select a scale and craft model pieces that will represent the actual dimensions of the set piece once built.
I already had a 3/8” scale model of the Wilcox Theater that Buzz McCulloch built. I began with my idea for the office surround. Using our flat inventory, I cut portal pieces out of foam core that matched the existing inventory. The scale ruler made it easy to cut out pieces to represent the 4 foot wide by 16 feet tall side portal units.
Secretary Bullpen model
I began to introduce some new ideas. To separate out office scenes from non office scenes I thought of two large windows that would fly in just for the office. In the script there are three scenes set at the elevator, but only one of them made reference to the elevator. Katie and I had an idea to replace some of the elevator scenes with a water cooler scene. That’s the little unit Stage Right with a pink foam water cooler and filing cabinet. Stage Left we decided to create a coffee area. Like the windows these will only be present during office scenes. A quick note on stage directions, they are always from the actor’s point of view. So imagine you are standing on stage looking at the audience, Stage Right is to your right and Stage Left to your left.
Scenes set outside of the office will have minimal set pieces, mostly furniture. The hospital will be simple as well, with just large pieces of white fabric flying in. Lighting will be important in these scenes as well. While we can’t hide the office surround, we can direct the focus away from it with lighting.
Another important part of building the model is deciding where set pieces will fly in and where furniture will store when it’s not in use on stage.
The final step of the set design is to present it to the director, getting input, making adjustments and changing the model. As of this writing carpenters are building, painters are painting and props and costumes are being created! 9 to 5 may be the name of the musical, but we’ll be putting in longer days than that to get everything done!
“It is so amazing that we have a tech director like John here at the Reif. His knowledge and talents in stage lighting and design are invaluable. His ideas for this show have really helped transform our space into a late 70s office. As the pieces have started going up this week you can see the cast settling in and believing they are going to work at Consolidated Industries.” ~ Katie E. Smith
Come see the show and see how it all turns out! Production dates are July 14-16 and July 21-23.
Reif Summer Events – Getting Outside!
Behind the Scenes – June, 2023
What do you want to do during our short summer season in the Northland? Get outside! So do we at The Reif, presenting world class entertainment in outdoor venues across our region!
Being forced to move performances outside during the Covid pandemic led us to discover a great concert venue and what I think will be a new summer tradition in Grand Rapids. We found that the covered hockey rink at the IRA Civic Center was an extraordinary place for music events! And, taking advantage of our beautiful lakes, we began boat in concerts and continued them every summer since.
With the IRA Civic Center under construction, we’ve branched out to two new venues this summer while continuing boat in concerts and our concert series in Hibbing. This summer we are presenting more outside performances than ever! My job will be to work with national and local bands, production companies, venue owners, park owners and our own staff and crew to assemble all the puzzle pieces we need to present thirteen concerts in seven different outside venues!
MN Discovery Center
At the heart of the Minnesota Discovery Center is this impressive 1600 seat amphitheater. Our biggest shows of the summer will be held here, Blackhawk on June 15th and Hairball on September 8th.
Doug Hunter is the long time Tour Director & Production Manager for Blackhawk. I worked with him in 2021 when they performed at the Civic Center Pavilion. Reaching out to him again we went over load in and sound check schedules. Other decisions included the number of stage hands, if we could cut follow spots, even what to have for dinner. I digress, but you would be surprised how often the hospitality section of a technical rider can be longer than their technical needs! Blackhawk is not one of those, whether advancing the show or after they arrive, their band and crew are so easy going to work with.
I’m expecting an sixteen hour day, our audio and lighting company will be the first in and the last out. The owner of the company is also the long time tour manager for Hairball, a lucky benefit for when they return to provide production support for Hairball in September.
Gunn Park
Three miles north of Grand Rapids nestled on the shores of Prairie Lake is Gunn Park with ball fields, a fishing pier and picnic areas. It also has a beautiful stone and wood 60’ x 90’ pavilion. We are very excited to bring Zeppo: A Celebration of Led Zeppelin (July 28), The Music of Journey & Bon Jovi (Aug 3) and Deuces Wild – Dueling Pianos (Aug 24) to this unique venue!
The primary hurdle to Gunn Park is the lack of infrastructure. There’s power and a roof, but no stage or dressing rooms. Reif crew will need to transport and assemble a 24’ x 20’ stage and Reif staff will need to figure out dressing rooms, perhaps borrowing a motorhome.
The Reif crew will start the day around 7am by assembling the stage and the audio company will arrive by 10am. Our headliner band will arrive at 2pm with the opening band shortly after. Between the opener and the headliner we’ll have approximately 2 ½-3 hours of music and then everything has to come down. Strike, as we call it, will take until at least midnight.
We’ve never brought a performance to Gunn Park before, but we’re very excited to present some exceptional music surrounded by the beauty of northern Minnesota!
Hibbing’s Bennett Park
For a few years now the Reif Center has contracted with the city of Hibbing to bring a series of free outdoor concerts to Bennett Park with local musicians from northern Minnesota. One of my favorites this summer will be by the Christopher David Hanson Band because Christopher always brings his little dog Minnow!
The City of Hibbing sets up a mobile stage and provides power. The bands and The Reif provide the audio system. The audience brings their lawn chairs and everyone has a grand time.
The concerts are held in the northwest corner of Bennett Park, near the curling building.
Reif Boat-In Concerts
The most successful of our pandemic era experiments was a series of boat-in concerts. According to Executive Director Shantel Dow, “There is no better fit for beautiful summers in Northern Minnesota than gathering with family and friends to hear great local music. Supporting these musicians and spreading performing arts to Northern Minnesota communities is a priority of the Reif.”
Finding power is the biggest issue with a boat-in! I always schedule a site visit so I can see what power is available and how far away it is. Even with a pre-visit there was that one time we overloaded the breaker in the boathouse and ended up having to run power all the way from the house instead!
Getting all the equipment to the lake is quite the experience as well. Some homeowners have a utility vehicle for hauling sound gear. Other homes have a long sweaty walk through the backyard then down an endless series of steps to the dock. I must admit I have a few favorite boat-in locations and few not so favorite. Don’t even get me started about the hornet’s nest at that one beach!
In most concert situations the audio person is mixing the sound from a position out in the middle of the audience. We found this difficult on the lake, something about water and electricity not getting along. I’m usually up next to the band running the mix. To find out what it sounds like out on the lake we’ll either send someone out in a kayak during sound check, or more likely, have someone we know out on the lake that can give us feedback during the concert. I think it usually sounds pretty decent, we’ve discovered that sound travels really well over the water!
Whether it’s a big act like Blackhawk or Christopher David Hanson and Minnow I hope you can make it out to one of our concerts this summer and enjoy the great outdoors!
A Grin Without a Cat
Behind the Scenes – May, 2023
This month we look behind the scenes of our upcoming Reif Dance spring production, Alice in Wonderland in “A Grin Without a Cat.”
Our Reif Dance spring production will last about 2 hours for the audience, but for the dancers and technical crew over 300 hours of rehearsal and 150 hours of construction, painting and lighting go into the show. Alice in Wonderland began in the fall of 2022 with our dance directors Micah and Yellie Chermak. They chose the title and decided what scenes and settings they wanted in the show. For Alice in Wonderland they took inspiration from John Tenniel’s original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” According to Yellie, “We have decided to follow the book and pursue the narrative chronologically. We think it allows for fun and unique creative opportunities.”
Reif Dance productions make extensive use of painted backdrops to help set the mood and location of each scene. Backdrops can be flown in and out quickly for set changes and take up no room on stage, leaving more space for the dancers. Over the years we have discovered that if we don’t get our backdrops early that often our first choice will be gone! In January Micah, Yellie and I met and talked about creating an opening and closing scene in the “real” world, something for “down the rabbit hole,” a forest, and the Queen of Hearts castle. I directed them to a couple of websites and they browsed through their inventory then sent me their selections. All their first choices were available and we made our reservations.
Here is a preview of the backdrop they selected to represent the chaos and bewilderment of Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole and her arrival in Wonderland.
Once we have our backdrops selected and reserved, the production side of the show goes on the back burner while choreography and rehearsals begin. In March, we reconvened for a production meeting between Micah and Yellie and our primary production crew of myself, Greg Johnson and Melanie McCoy. We went through the show and learned what set and prop elements were needed. Everything from a giant mushroom for the Caterpillar and a tree for the Cheshire Cat to tables and chairs for the Mad Hatter’s tea party!
Alice says of the Cheshire Cat, “I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” That sparked a request from Micah and Yellie to have a giant disembodied Cheshire Cat smile and eyes on poles that could be manipulated by the dancers. Greg and Melanie did their own research and chose a slightly creepy version, which the dance directors approved.
The Cheshire Cat smile will be a collaborative project with Greg building it, Melanie researching black light paint, and a third tech person, Buzz McCulloch, painting it. Greg has been building Reif Dance sets for two years and loves seeing his work on stage. “From the first production meeting until show time, a lot of emotions can go into building a set piece: excitement, fear, hope, frustration, relief, and happiness. All of that pales in comparison to the joy of seeing what I’ve created being used in a production on stage,” said Greg.
Reif Technician, Greg Johnson takes measurements for the Cheshire Cat smile.
Want to see how everything comes together? Don’t be late (like the white rabbit) and get your tickets now! Performances are June 9th at 6pm, June 10th at 2pm & 6pm, and June 11th at 2pm.