HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-06-29, Page 7BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, JUNE 29/30, 2005, PAGE 7
Ian Chappell builds a cornice
moulding from wood, linoleum
and wallpaper.
Continued from page 6.
hardwood. They were able to get
roll-ends through their supplier at
bargain rates.
The other big challenge for Snell,
Sanders and Chappell was how to
build the ornate cornice around the
room that is supposed to look like
the pressed-tin ceiling of an old
store. The goal, Sanders says, was to
build it for under $3 a running foot
instead of paying $7.50 a foot for a
commercial product.
The pressed-tin look has a sense of
depth so finding the proper texture
Lindsay-Anne Black shows a
pot of flowers created for the
gardening store in The Ginkgo
Tree.
Looking solid,
but easy to
dismantle
The set looks like a century-old
brick store, yet it must be
diismantled in minutes to make way
for another show’s set
used a hot-glue process to build up
the filigrees in the cornice but that
would be very time consuming.
They could try painting the pattern
but it would be hard to get an
authentic feel.
The answer, says Snell with a
chuckle, came to her while she was
lying in the bathtub of the house she
has rented for the summer and
looked up and saw an embossed
wallpaper. She went back to the
crew with her inspiration and they
agreed.
Chappell has built a wooden frame
for the cornice with moulding on top
and bottom and more of that
linoleum creating the curve of the
cornice (they experimented before
deciding on the linoleum). The
embossed wallpaper will be glued to
the linoleum.
Chappell’s assistant this year in
building the set is Arras Hopkins
who, though still at a young age, has
a long history at the Festival as a
member of the Young Company then
with The Outdoor Donnellys as an
actor. This summer he decided to try
.working behind the scenes.
Production assistant in the
department is Nick Fay, from Paris,
a graduate of Fanshawe College.
By the end of May the carpentry
portion of The Ginkgo Tree set was
pretty much complete except for that
pesky cornice. The set was moved
from the carpentry shop in the
Festival’s “garage” complex, next
door to the paint shop.
Penny Schledewitz, the scenic
painter, from Stratford, was
beginning on what was scheduled to
be a nine-day process (with Powers
and Gloria previewing two weeks
after the first preview for Ginkgo,
scheduling must be precise).
Ginkgo, she says, is “a very
painterly show” with lots of layers
in the painting. Unlike a house
painter who wants their paint job to
look fresh and new, a scenic painter
must create something that’s new,
but looks like it’s been lived in for
years.
One of her tasks will be to paint
brick paneling, which arrived red
with black mortar, to look like
Ontario- yellow brick with grey
mortar.
Then there’s that floor, again, and
the negotiations between the
designers of the two shows as to a
compromise on colour.
Perhaps the heaviest workload for
Ginkgo will fall on the shoulders of
Lindsay-Anne Black, head of the
properties department and her
assistant Michelle Blore. They must
gather the material to create an
authentic-looking garden shop with
three distinct areas.
Kerwin had provided photos,
taken at garden centres, to Snell at
their first meeting of the kind of
props that would be needed. Black is
creating pots of bedding plants on
this day, gluing artificial flowers into
cell-packs (only the dead plants can
be real, she jokes). Elsewhere in the
store there will be garden statuary
and at the rear of the set is the entry
to a greenhouse.
The biggest challenge, aside from
the many shelves that must be filled
with life-like gardening items that
must be found, built or bought, is the
“wood chipper” that must be built. A
real wood chipper would be too
dangerous to have on stage so the
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talents of all departments will come
together to create a recognizable
wood chipper.
What’s more. Black says, this is a
“comic wood chipper” that is a
major part of the plot. “It has to
Continued on page 8
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