Overhead Projector Meets Death of a Salesman

Overhead Projector

Meets

Death of a Salesman

Black berets and black clothing have been iconically associated with artists for as long as I have been alive.  An association which I never understood as a child, I would think with bemusement, “Why would anybody into art want to wear anything sooo boooring as all black clothes?”  The beret, however, I thought was sooo cool. Not because it was associated with art and artists.  I liked berets because par t of my ancestry is French and Scottish.  Now as an adult I can see the practicality behind wearing all black when you are on a stage crew for a play; which may be part of where the association came from initially.  

As an adult I have had the opportunity to help one of my friends paint sets for the plays she helps produce.  Her Husband is an English teacher and Drama teacher at a high school.  It has been an instructive learning experience for me.  For Example, I was taught to never use black in art as it makes your work look flat.  However, using black as outlines in sets is often done.  I felt like I was removing a dead mouse from a mouse trap the first time I used black paint on a set( quite snobby of me, but that was truly my internal reaction).  Despite my initial reaction, I could quickly see wisdom in her color choices being bold rather than subtle.  When for the first time we checked the backgrounds from the back of the gym I could see she was right.  What I had seen as glaring and slightly jarring, was soft, subtle, and completely necessary from a distance. The way I would have done it would have looked great up close but would been completely ineffective for informing the audience and the actors.

One of the others problems I have noticed in helping with sets are keeping things in proportion, perspective and those stubborn vanishing lines.  The scale of the set is so large, I can’t even use an eight foot long two by four held up by my friend and I across the set, it’s not long enough. Even if we could get something long enough there is no way to know if we are holding it up straight, that I know of.  I even tried a level once and found out the floor was slopped. 

This time my friend is helping her husband produce Death of a Salesman.  She asked for help with the sets. However, I can’t afford the gas to drive out to the school as it is quite a distance.  I also don’t have the hours to spend since I am helping my husband by creating art work for his web site design class.  However, I understand her difficulty with the sets and wanted to help.

She has found a student at the school who is an artist to help with the sets.   However, this student is not comfortable with creating buildings and on such a scale I can understand why.  So an idea popped in my head to have her use an “old school” overhead projector.  The kind I remember my math teachers in high school using for problem demonstrations.  So I drew up the design she wanted on a piece of paper, and then laminated two sheets of lamination paper with nothing in them. Then I drew the design on the lamentation sheets with permanent marker.  My hope is that she will now be able to project the scene onto the set and just trace the lines with a lot less head ache.