RENT: The Set is Here!

For those of you who read our earlier entry RENT: Words and Images from the Scenic Designer, take a look now! The set is going up, and you get to view it in action.

Monday: The set looks sparse, with only the first tier
of scaffolding, a free-standing door, and some fake brick
facades scattering the stage.

Tuesday: The set looks beautiful with its multiple levels,
hung windows, painting, and lighting. Still at work in
this shot, but looking much more similar to Kathryn's
design plans from our previous post!

Come see it for yourself this Sunday at the opening of RENT!

The Line Starts Here...Free Fun Friday Fills the House!

And the line did start...as early as 3:00pm! New Rep staff hustled their preparations for their Free Fun Friday performance of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this past Friday, sponsored by Highland Street Foundation. Though tickets would not be released until 4:30 and the house would not open for seating until 5:30, a crowd of 30-plus people filled the sidewalk by the Arsenal Center for the Arts by a mere 3:30pm.

Some awaited more anxiously than others...

Being a bright, sunny, pre-hurricane afternoon, individual viewers and full families attended the event from a variety of locations and theatrical interests. It was wonderful to see such a diverse presence from the community, as the company shared the first performance of New Rep On Tour.

Whole Foods' generous donation of concession items helped New Rep's programming, while cooling viewers and quieting the younger attendees.

In addition to the show, ticket-holders were given the chance to enter New Rep's raffle to win four tickets to the holiday show A Christmas Story. Viewers young and old participated excitedly, and the three lucky winners were thrilled Monday morning after receiving their congratulatory calls. (View who won on our website.)

By house opening, we were down to five tickets. By show time, we were completely sold out! All 340 seats of the theater bustled with nervous energy. An hour later, New Rep staff were still turning people away at the door, having long since reached full capacity.

As Facebook follower @Lori Holmes Fournier posted,

Just came home from watching Huckleberry Finn and it was AWESOME! Love you guys, we have always come home so happy with the theater experience. Thank you for all your hard work, it shows. Can't wait for Little shop of horrors & Tales of Poe.

So thank you to all who came out on August 26th, and thank you to Highland Street Foundation. It was a beautiful event, happily shared with as many members of our community as we could hold in our seats!

RENT is due…

by Joe Stallone, Properties Designer

…due to open at New Rep on September 6th! I’m the Props Designer, or as the position was known back in the day, the Properties Master.  (Consider the irony; my professional day job could have the same title: I have a real estate brokerage.  Theatre imitating life?)

I have been living inside this piece of theatre for the past few weeks and have a unique and interesting perspective of both the production and the play as well as some unique and interesting tasks and design challenges.  I love doing props because I not only get to see and hear this play, but I get to touch it and feel it and engage with it through the things that help create the look and feel of the atmosphere in which it takes place, and also through the variety of items used by the characters.  So I get to experience this play internally as well as externally through the hands and fingers and bodies and eyes of each character as well as from a position of overview.  I get to live in the play and in each character for bits of time with each prop or set piece that I make or find or choose.  And each time it brings me deeper inside myself.  It’s a mind-blower.

During RENT rehearsals, I laugh, I cry, I sigh and I dream.  But most of all, I remember.  I remember my friends, lovers, and family that are gone.  I remember the skin-tightening stress of wondering if I had “it” or if he or she had “it” or who would be next.  I remember that this epidemic is not over.  I remember that it claims lives every day.  We must all remember.

RENT: Words and Images from the Scenic Designer

At this week's Meet and Greet, Scenic Designer Kathryn Kawecki showed viewers her beautiful 3D model for RENT. But this was by far not the first rendition. Read below for images of her earlier designs, and a description of her process.

In the words of Kathryn Kawecki:

[Here] are some early sketches that show a few different set-ups. Some things have changed, like the dumpster, which was cut for cost & practicality reasons. Also, some of these are before the addition of the onstage staircase & don't show all of the posters.

I created these particular sketches using Photoshop predominantly, but not just Photoshop. I have a sort of multi-media approach to making sketches.

When I'm working in a proper studio (instead of out in freelance limbo somewhere), I start out by making a super quick 3-D white model and working out the real structure of the space; I take a digital photo of the model and import it into my computer and "sketch" on top of the photo to figure out the textures, colors & surfaces that are right for the piece. Sometimes my process goes back and forth between model and sketch; I learn things in the sketch that inform the actual structure, so I make changes to the model, which sometimes also calls for changes in the "materials" in the sketch.

For RENT, there were actually 4 versions going between model and sketch as the design developed. Some of these stages were also shared with the rest of the creative team, so I could hear what felt right to them as well. For RENT, part of the process was really an editing back and honing in on the right structure and the right structure. From the beginning, we knew we were interested in bringing together multiple urban textures that we liked. The first versions of the design really crammed all the things we liked into one composition, but it had too much going on at once and was almost visually overwhelming. In the final version, I edited down the number of different textures; there is still a collision of urban textures, but with a more controlled palette.

[The image above] shows side by side a sketch and model for a different project (MARAT/SADE for URI later this fall) I'm designing which is simpler structurally, so it makes it a little easier to see the connection between the start and end of the process.

Come see Kawecki's finished product on September 4th when RENT opens the New Rep 2011-2012 Season!

RENT: First Rehearsal

With just 19 days until the opening of New Rep's 2011-2012 Season, the cast, directors and crew of RENT gathered with New Rep staff and supporters in the rehearsal hall at the Arsenal Center for the Arts this morning to discuss the artistic, visual and physical intentions of the show.

director Ben Evett addresses the large crowd

 Director Ben Evett began the Meet and Greet with his thoughts on RENT and the message he wishes to share with his audience. Evett stressed that while he plans to keep the time period true to the original performance, he also aims to go beyond the topic of AIDS by encompassing human fragility as a whole.

director Ben Evett

A husband and wife team, Evett will be working closely with choreographer Kelli Edwards, who recently received the 2010 IRNE Award for Best Choreography, Small Theater, for New Rep's Hot Mikado.

John R. Malinowski, lighting design

Several of the designers spoke about their own ideas on lighting, props, set design and costuming. Costuming received the largest commotion from cast and viewers, as Frances Nelson McSherry flipped through pages of collaged 90's styles. McSherry pointed out that many of the performers in the Ensemble perform multiple roles. She then emphasized her plan to add and subtract costuming elements during these quick changes, while avoiding a full erasure of any character's identity. (View some of the collages here.)

Props, contributed by properties designer Joe Stallone.

Kathryn Kawecki, scenic design

The beautifully meticulous and visually dynamic set design model by Kawecki.

Frances Nelson McSherry, costume design

Cast, staff, and New Rep supporters laugh and applaud the designers as they speak.

With the Meet and Greet concluded, everyone takes five. All are excited to begin rehearsing, and those watching offer support, while enjoying a behind-the-scenes look at the process of producing the kickoff to New Rep's 2011-12 Season. More to come in the next few weeks, and don't forget that you, too, can see the show. For more info, visit our website.

Nick Sulfaro, Angel, begins studying the libretto.

Todd C. Gordon, musical director, plays a few chords in preparation for the afternoon ahead.

RENT: A taste of what's to come...

With RENT right around the corner, a production meeting was held on Friday, August 5th to discuss artistic visions for the show. Check out these fun collage-style images presented by Costume Designer Frances Nelson McSherry--A small taste of what's to come!

More to come soon after our first rehearsal...