In the video below, Cheryl Mintz, McCarter Theatre’s Resident Stage Manager takes us inside the stage manager’s booth for McCarter Theatre’s annual production of A Christmas Carol, directed by Michael Unger. Learn about what a Stage Manager does and watch the show from Cheryl’s perspective in this short video. Stay tuned for more videos from A Christmas Carol!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Okay, not really.  Lighting a fire in a crowded theater would be dangerous.  Theaters are flammable.  So are crowds.  The whole thing would be a disaster.

Paxton Whitehead and Jon Patrick Walker in She Stoops to Conquer. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

So what do you do when the designer (the illustrious David Korins) designs a set that features a big old fireplace in a big old country mansion?  Okay, the best thing to do is to build a propane fire.  Propane fires tend to get hot and burn down sets, so you should make sure you build your set out of fireproof materials-things like concrete and heavy duty sheet rock.  Also, you’ll need a very very friendly local Fire Marshall.  And maybe some fire extinguishers on hand, just to be safe.  If you don’t the time, money, or structural integrity in your stage floor to hold up all that concrete, then the next best thing is to have some of McCarter’s ingenious electricians (like Paul Kilsdonk and Todd Loyd) build you a home-made electric fireplace from materials they happen to have in stock.  That’s what we did.

Paul and Todd started by thinking about all the places in a fireplace that generate light.  There’s the ember bed below the logs (which is probably glowing red and orange), there are the logs themselves (which probably have some embers on them that are similarly colored), there are the flames (which flicker red, yellow, orange and blue), and then there is the light that all this casts on the fire box around it (the chimney is probably glowing, etc).  All of these elements are probably flickering a bit and subtly changing colors, so you’ll need a lot of electrical channels to pull this off-the fireplace in She Stoops to Conquer uses about 20.

Here’s how they did it:

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About a month ago, while still conducting casting callbacks for The Brother/Sister Plays, the directors (Robert O’Hara and Tina Landau) and playwright (Tarell Alvin McCraney) had a meeting with set designer James Schuette and lighting designer Jane Cox to discuss the plays and see the latest design plans.  One of the challenges in producing a trilogy is that the set has to function for three plays.   The two directors each worked separately with James in discussing their design concepts for the three plays, and he brought all the ideas together into one set that transforms for each play, which he presented at the meeting in February.

McCarter Producing Director Mara Isaacs took some pictures, which we’re sharing with you so that you can get a sneak peak at the collaborators’ ideas and a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their process.

James Schuette presents his model to (l to r) Jane Cox, Robert O’Hara, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Tina Landau.

The model for In the Red and Brown Water.

James Schuette shows Tina Landau some of his visual research for The Brothers Size.

The model, transformed for The Brothers Size.

(l to r) Anthony Sanford (directing intern), Tina Landau, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jane Cox, Robert O’Hara, and James Schuette.

The model, transformed for Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet All photos by Mara Isaacs

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Rebecca Brooksher and Veanne Cox in Twelfth Night. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

If you’ve seen any of the images related to McCarter Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night, you’ve noticed that there is a bit of a rose theme going on.  One of the ways in which that manifests itself in the production is the several thousand dollars worth of fabric rose petals which, by the end of the play, end up all over the stage floor, getting danced on, rolled on, and otherwise generally trampled.

In general, we don’t like for our props and set pieces to get dirty and bedraggled throughout the run of a production, nor do our actors like having dirty rose petals dropped on their heads.  On the other hand, our current economic climate doesn’t leave us in a position to buy several barrels of fresh fabric rose petals every night.  So what’s a theater to do?

The crafty (and inventive) production staff devised the perfect solution to this budding problem.  They created a flower-spinner: a giant, motorized mesh tube, which tumbles the flowers for several hours between performances, letting the dust, grit and other detritus fall out between the mesh, and leaving only the fresh and clean faux-flora.  The spinner, which lives in our “trap room” is about 12 feet long and 3 feet high—between performances, it is filled to the brim with petals and spins away.

The flower-cleaning machine

It turns out that that this isn’t the first time the production staff has had to figure out ways to clean uncleanable objects, or separate enormous masses of unlikely props.  After each performance of Wintertime, the staff had to separate enormous quantities of snow from tiny plastic soldiers and three different sizes of cork.  The solution to that problem involved a very similar tumbler and a big fan that blew lighter objects further away than the heavier ones.  During another production, the staff had to find a way to get confetti out of pebbles.  They went to the store and bought the weakest vacuum they could find, then punched holes in the tubes until the suction was so weak that it would only pick up the confetti, and would leave the pebbles alone.  Clever, huh?

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Directing/Producing Intern Sarah Wansley has done it again, with another short McCarter video–this time about the process of taping out the floor for the rehearsals of A Christmas Carol. The video combines a time-lapse film of the floor taping process with interviews of Stage Manager Hannah Woodward and Supervising Stage Manager Cheryl Mintz. I hope you enjoy!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Ming Cho Lee

Calling A Christmas Carol Set Designer Ming Cho Lee a prolific and talented theater artist is a bit of an understatement. Born in Shanghai, Ming originally moved to the States in 1949 to study art at Occidental College in L.A.. After falling in love with theater and receiving an M.F.A. in design from U.C.L.A., Ming’s career skyrocketed when he became an apprentice to designer Jo Mielzner. Only six years later Ming designed his first Broadway show, The Moon Besieged. Since then, Ming has designed over 20 Broadway shows including Mother Courage and her Children, King Lear, The Glass Menagerie and For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf and worked with McCarter’s own Emily Mann on the Broadway production of her play, Execution of Justice. Interestingly, Ming’s designs have often received critical and popular acclaim even when the shows themselves did not: Ming often jokes that he has “more Broadway flops than anyone!” With such an illustrious career, one may wonder how McCarter was lucky enough to snatch him up for A Christmas Carol. As McCarter Resident Stage Manager (and resident Christmas Carol expert) Cheryl Mintz tells the story, Ming was thrilled to design A Christmas Carol because despite the abundance of Christmas Carols across the country, no one had ever asked him before!

Ming’s set, which had its debut at McCarter over a decade ago, lives in four 48-foot trailers parked outside of the McCarter Shops during the off-season. Each year the Production department spends four whirlwind days loading in the set before A Christmas Carol technical rehearsals begin; the first two days of load-in alone require 35 people working from 8am to 10pm. Check out Adam’s blog from last year about the intense installation process. The set has four motorized units: Scrooge’s Bedroom, the Counting House, the Cratchit’s table, and Fred’s piano. There are also 14 scenic elements that fly in or out and 34 speakers throughout the theater. When the Counting House unit was originally built by a scene shop in Philadelphia, it weighed approximately 6,000 pounds. A few years ago the McCarter scene shop rebuilt the top of the unit with lighter material and shed 1,000 of those pounds. Loading the set is only the beginning of the Production department’s work—it takes 16 crew members to run the show each night.

Ming designed the set with a forced perspective, so that the units look deeper than they actually are. The outside of Scrooge’s house (which flies in), for example, has 11 vanishing points (this is when parallel lines appear to converge to simulate depth - check out Wikipedia for a demonstration). The original drawing was so detailed, the McCarter scene shop chose to print out the drawing actual size and build it from that. Ming’s use of perspective is also evident in the city backdrops, which feature St. Paul’s dome. He used a stock image of London from WWII as his source and broke the image into three parts for three separate drops. If you look closely, you can see what appear to be dirty piles of snow near the bottoms of the buildings—in the source image, these mounds were actually piles of debris from bombings during the war. Every year, audience members comment that the set appears to slant to one side. Have no fear, the McCarter scene shop did not accidentally create the next leaning tower of Pisa, Ming actually designed nearly everything in the set to slant in order to represent Scrooge’s skewed view of the world. Thanks to Chris Nelson (technical director), Steve Howe (stage supervisor) and Bill Kirby (sound engineer) for the fun facts about the production! Study up and you’ll do well on the upcoming A Christmas Carol trivia quiz!

Posted by Sarah Wansley, Directing/Producing Intern at McCarter Theatre.

Cheryl Mintz

Five things I am especially enjoying this, my 15^th year, as the Supervising Stage Manager for McCarter Theatre’s A Christmas Carol:

1] Dermot Crowley: I have probably watched every scene of the play either rehearsed or performed over 800 times (imagine watching the same film 800 times?), but Dermot is forcing me to listen all over again.  With his fresh interpretation and the delivery of dialogue in a new way.  I thought I had heard the words every way possible, but Dermot has found new ways to make me to laugh and touch my soul.  There is one moment in the first office scene that with only a well-placed pause, Dermot lands a specific moment in a totally new way.  I can’t believe no other prior Scrooge has thought of doing it that way!

2] James Ludwig:  Having played Fred and the Undertaker from 2000-2003, he was whisked off to Broadway, where he spent 4 years with Spamalot before returning this year as Bob Cratchit.  Jimmy is a company leader, our AEA deputy, and loves being back at McCarter so much.  He brings so much joy with him every time he walks through our rehearsal hall doors.  It is a pleasure watching him navigate Cratchit, and he is so good with the children.  He mentioned at our first read-through how, though being in a successful Broadway run is amazing, he always thought of and missed being at McCarter for A Christmas Carol during the holidays.  It seems that every actor who is a part of this production takes something very special in their heart away with them.

3] Anne O’Sullivan: Back for her 7^th year as Mrs. Fezziwig, Mrs. Stocks and the Laundress after taking last season off, Anne has the most extensive woman’s role, and if you don’t see her onstage, you can bet she is changing her costume somewhere in the wings.  Anne walked in this year with her inspiring love of life.  Anne has had the same Palmer Square apartment during all her appearances at McCarter, which is better known as her “love shack” where she has had wonderful holiday memories with her husband over the years!

4] The Young Ensemble: Never in my 15 years have we seen such a large turnover in our Young Ensemble of 14 local children.  With 10 new children, it has kept all of us on our toes re-experiencing the process as we lead the children through it.  Danny Hallowell is back for his 6^th year in the company at the ripe old age of 10!  What a pleasure to have watched him progress from 3 seasons as Tiny Tim, one season as the Beggar Boy (as he was too big to play Tim and too young for the other boys roles), last year landing the scene perfectly as Turkey Boy and now in his touching portrayal of Boy Scrooge.  I am especially looking forward to Kalyn Altmeyer (Martha Cratchit) achieving her 100^th performance in the production, a milestone that an actor can reach in their 4^th year with the production.

5] Our Director Michael Unger: Michael and I have collaborated for 11 years heading up McCarter’s production of A Christmas Carol.  (And celebrating the birth and watching the growing up of our respective children.)  I love my yearly call to Michael in August announcing that it is Christmas Carol time as we set up and plan for the Young Ensemble auditions.  I love seeing his face when he walks into the rehearsal room for First Rehearsal and the space is transformed, especially for his production.  I love making the journey with him as he guides the new and alumni company members through the rehearsal process and then I wait for yet another new and creative idea pop out of his brain.  I love how he lets me set the schedule and then directs whatever I put in front of him each day!  I love collaborating with Michael!

Posted by Cheryl Mintz, Resident Stage Manager at McCarter Theatre and Supervising Stage Manager of A Christmas Carol.

McCarter Directing/Producing Intern Sarah Wansley has been at it again, this time with a behind-the-scenes video of McCarter’s costume shop, narrated by Cynthia Thom, who runs the costume department.  If you’ve ever wondered how a costume goes from design to reality, this is the video for you to watch (and it is full of examples from Talley’s Folly—if you look closely, you can see the making of Sally’s dress).  Post your comments below by clicking on the “comments” button, or double click on the video itself and comment directly on our YouTube page.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

BD Wong in Herringbone. Photo by Richard Termine.

Installing the set for Herringbone in the Berlind Theatre

Installing the set for Herringbone.

If you saw Herringbone, I’m sure you noticed the concentric turntables that brought the entire set to life, moving pianos, trunks and doors in a seemingly effortless motion around the stage.  It may have looked easy, but I can promise it wasn’t.  Our fantastic production staff put in an enormous amount of hours to make Eugene Lee’s set come to life, so I wanted to share a few photos to show you how they did it.

The Berlind Theatre isn’t build with any turntables (or trapdoors) in it, so anytime we do something like that, we have to raise the stage floor to build the gear into it.  In this case, an entire new floor was built, with two independently operated motorized steel-framed turntables that were controlled from offstage through a rather sophisticated computer system (and a human operator who ran the system).  The motors for the system are the same motors we use to drive the two houses in A Christmas Carol.  In the pictures at right, you can see the turntables as they were first installed in the Berlind Theatre, prior to the plywood flooring being built on top of them.  You’ll notice the Herringbone sign and the door frame, which sits on its own rotating circle platform within the inner turntable.  At center is a plug, which is stationary.

When I took these photos, the production staff was testing out the turntable mechanism.  During the production, each turntable cue was called by the show’s production stage manager (Cheryl Mintz) over headset to the turntable operator, who then executed it.  There was also a warning light that she could turn on remotely to tell him to get ready, and then could turn off when it was time to run the turntable at its programmed speed and to its programmed destination.  To make things fun, the production staff installed the lightbulb for the cue light inside a pink flamingo—so during tech there was a pink flamingo in the audience section that kept lighting up right before any set pieces moved.  It was a bit disconcerting at first, but you got used to it quick!  During performances, the flamingo (and the operator) moved backstage.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

The set design model for Talley’s Folly, designed by John Lee Beatty.

The set for Talley’s Folly, in the Matthews Theatre

The set for Talley’s Folly, with lights. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

For this production of Talley’s Folly, McCarter has assembled most of the original design team who created Marshall W. Mason’s Tony Award-winning 1980 Broadway production of this gorgeous Lanford Wilson play. Those designers include Jennifer von Mayrhauser (her 20th play at McCarter under Emily Mann’s tenure), Chuck London, and John Lee Beatty, who won the Tony Award and the Drama Desk award for his outstanding set design.

John has re-created his original design on the Matthews stage at McCarter, and I must say that it’s absolutely gorgeous. In order to get a sense of how beautiful it is, I’ve attached some photos to this post, which show the design in model form, immediately after installation (with master electrician Paul Kilsdonk on the stage, and in its full glory (with Richard Schiff and Margot White). If you don’t have tickets to Talley’s Folly yet, you simply must get them immediately, if only to see one of the most sumptious sets that we’ve had at McCarter in over 20 years.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.