Joe Johnson's Blog: The Music Man

My summer was a summer of theatre. I originally signed up to do Stage Crew/Assistant stage manager for my home town's community theatre production of The Music Man, where I would be backstage with my friends for a few weeks. Well, it became a lot more than that. Early in June I was told they needed help with the sets so I went in to do whatever i could, when i could, and where I could. However, I was asked by the head set designer to help in designing and painting four building flats for River City, Iowa. Already have done one set design project prior, I was happy to do it again. The flats were already sized, 12ft high by 6ft 10" wide with another side panel that was 4 ft wide. I now became the lead on that project. Originally, they were going to be just painted flats but a props master and friend Tom Bray who has worked for WCT for many years saw my designs said "lets build them out!" so we did because and I thought we should too, it would give them more dimension and make them more real. If brought in from the beginning, I think I would have designed the basic structure of the town differently but, then again, they were only in two scenes....which i found out later.... oh well, they were important ones!

Now, I had only about 3 weeks to get all 4 flats ready to be transported across town to the stage, so i was going pretty much day and night on these suckers to get it done, saving minor pieces to be added on later. But I sure as hell could not have done it without the supportive help of props master Tom Bray, Set Designers George Juaire, Craig Steineck and good friends who came in to help when they could to lay down basic colors so i could focus on details. I learned a lot on this project, in relation to colors, building, textures, and what not to use/do haha like mixing paints (for set pieces cause they are so big)......or using hot glue to glue foam pieces onto the flats...... live and learn right :)

I think what I love most about theatre is the fact that it is all collaborative. Even though it was my design, its hard to say it was solely one person because here you get to bounce ideas off of other people and feed off their energy, rather than just sitting at home in a studio by yourself. Its so full of life and energy, even when it gets stressful, and thats what i love about it and why i love the world of theatre so much. Having this now be my second set design project, I must say I really do enjoy it. I get to combine my love for visual and my love for performing arts, how great is that!

Sketches from Stillwater MN, studying architecture from buildings built during the late 19th century and early 20th century

Early Roughs of the Buildings for River City

Final Line Drawings that would be turned into transperencies to blow up to larger size to trace them onto the flats themselves. They were a lot short than expected in order to make them fairly proportional.