The Fort Wayne Civic Theater is preparing for its opening weekend of ‘Grease’ and after weeks of preparation the stage is set and ready for the actors to do their part. But before the curtains could open on this iconic musical, months of work went into to building it from the ground up.
Setting the scene
Andrew Holderfield staples foil onto a wooden frame, all in the effort of giving the set piece a more 1950s chrome look. The piece will hang above the stage, between the actors and the lights, but since it can be seen from the crowd, Holderfield has to consider how it fits into the rest of the set design.
Holderfield is the production manager and lighting designer for the Fort Wayne Civic Theater. His task is to design and time all of the lights that hit the stage throughout the production, in this case ‘Grease.’
“Lighting is one of the harder things to grasp because it’s just something you physically can’t touch," Holderfield said.
From the crowd, watching the actors hit their marks and the lights follow them can be a hard thing to consider as its own separate art form within the production. But Holderfield said, right from the moment a play is picked, he has to be thinking about how his lighting effects the big picture of the story.
“Okay, well, what kind of lighting are we feeling?" He said. "Are we going to be very intimate? Is this going to be a big blockbuster musical where we want to be very bright? How many people are we looking at?”
Those questions usually get answered in the concept meeting that begins the production process. Holderfield, along with the director, choreographer, scenic designer and costume designer all come together to make sure their visions meld.
For this production specifically, Holderfield said he wants to lean away from modern lighting.
“I want to get into this old romantic feel lighting of this like moonlight, white light and that’s how we sculpt people," he said. "You know, that very 50's style, that retro style of romance. In that old school, because they’re coming out of black and white and all that, it’s that very white lighting, very softer.”
Once he has an idea of what the director wants and how that meshes with his vision, Holderfield sets to work creating the style for the show.
“So, similarly to how an artist would create a palette for their painting, we’ll do the same thing with lights," he said.
And that palette can be informed by other things as well, such as the costumes and the sets themselves. That’s where Adam Fletcher comes in.
Fletcher is the technical director and scenic designer, in charge of designing and building the sets. Which, for Grease, is no easy feat. The musical follows groups of students around their high school, the gymnasium and a diner.
Fletcher also joins those early concept meetings, but his job can often be the person who has to bring everyone back down to earth.
“Sometimes I have my own vision, director has a very different vision, we try to meet somewhere in the middle," he said. "That’s typically what happens. Sometimes it’s a problem of scale – they want something really big and spectacular, but we still need to build it in this tiny little shop.”
Holderfield said one of the most important parts of those early meetings is getting everyone on the same page, to help create a cohesive visual environment for the audience.
“Let’s say for Grease, you know, okay if our high school needs a mascot, we all need to make sure we know what that mascot is," he said. "It’s the world building of it is part of that storytelling as well.”
A production of this scale is also no small feat for a community theater, even in an arts-centric town like Fort Wayne. The scenic design team is only two people; Fletcher and Ashley Brassell, the scenic charge artist.
Brassell’s job is to paint the sets that Fletcher creates, and that can be a big task of making the sets feel real and lived in.
“Sometimes we do productions like Jersey Boys or Misery where it’s dilapidated a little bit, a little distressed, a little gross," she said. "And that’s when I’m like, okay, do we want water damage, mold, mildew, foot traffic? All of those beautiful things really just make the environment alive.”
Brassell is also the volunteer coordinator. Aside from herself and Fletcher, the Civic Theater relies entirely on volunteer labor to help paint sets and get everything ready in time for the show.
Brassell said they see all levels of skills in the volunteers that come through; retirees who spent their careers working with their hands, high school students looking to learn more about the craft and even people with no experience at all who just want to offer their time.
“So it’s very much individually assessed," she said. "I personally really enjoy educating people, especially about paint and the processes involved there.”
Those familiar with either the stage or movie version of ‘Grease’ will know one of the major set pieces of the story is the souped-up car, turned from a junker to a beauty through a bit of theater illusion.
But it wasn’t easy bringing that car to life for the Civic. Fletcher says they originally planned to use two cars, a rusted out one and a nice one, but realized into the process the two cars weren’t the same.
They managed to find a car built specifically for the production, just in time to make it to the stage.
Bressell said it isn’t live theater without having to identify and solve a last minute problem.
“No matter how many shows I’ve done, there’s always points where I’m like ‘ah is this really gonna come together? Is this really gonna work?’" She said. "And then you see it finally all come together and you’re like it’s theater magic. It always works out in the end.”
Dressing the part
The costume department for the Fort Wayne Civic Theater is settling into their new forever home inside the Anthony Wayne building downtown. Before that they were in a basement and then they were on the road for two years while the Arts United Center was remodeled.
Costume Designer Sarah Talavera-Moloney gives a tour of the new space, which offers room for several sewing machines, bins of shoes, racks of clothes, an entire section of fabric and a section in the back filled from floor to ceiling with storage of old costumes.
“The day changes every single day," she said.
Talavera-Moloney said the costume team spends a lot more time at a computer than people probably realize. They’re researching time periods and garment styles, reading scripts, purchasing fabric and shoes.
“We do a lot of production meetings, talking with the directors, the scenic designer, lighting designer," she said. "Making sure that whatever we build is conducive to whatever they’re building as well.”
It can take anywhere from a day up to two or three weeks for the costume department to construct a garment, if they’re building it from scratch. Often times, they’re purchasing vintage pieces, borrowing from other organizations in the community or searching online for a garment that fits.
For ‘Grease,’ they have a bin full of vintage shoes.
“This show is, by far, the most shoes I’ve ever put in a show," Talavera-Moloney said. "Each cast member has at least three pairs, some of them have four or five pairs.”
They’ve been working with IPFW to secure the iconic saddle shoes, but Talavera-Maloney said it's also still been a lot of purchasing of shoes. And, typically, when designing the costumes for characters, they start from the ground up... literally.
“So, we start with a shoe, start with something safe, make sure it’s the silhouette we’re looking for," she said. "I just recently did this where I put an actor in a tennis shoe and it looked great, but the choreographer wanted more of a leg line. So, we switched to heels. And it was a really easy transition. Sometimes they’re harder, but most of the times they’re not.”
But when you have so many pairs of shoes, different items of clothing, quick changes backstage, it can be difficult to keep each item where it’s meant to be.
“We just do a lot of labelling," Talavera-Moloney said. "The heck out of labelling.”
Costume shop manager Geoff Goelz said it’s that labelling and having specific spots for specific characters that keeps everything organized.
“We label the costumes, too, because they might be doing a quick change and then it’s like ‘whose sweater was this? I don’t know whose this is,'" he said. "So, we put a label on it and then that goes into their spot in the wardrobe room and everything and so then it just keeps everything in track.”
And, while Talavera-Moloney said she loves the new theater space inside the updated Arts United Center, it comes with its own challenges; the lights. She says the industry standard for lights has been changing from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, which means she’s had to learn how that changes her design process.
“A red incandescent is so much different than an LED red, right?" She said. "And the way that interacts with fabric is totally different. The way that it picks up color and texture – LEDs on texture is crazy.”
They’ve had to purge old stock of beautiful pieces because they just don’t work under LED light. They’ve also been adding stage lights into their dressing rooms, so they can test how a fabric will look under the lights long before they hit the stage.
It’s not the only time she’s had to compromise some of her vision to work better with the whole picture. Talavera-Moloney says she and Holderfield are great friends and work well together – and sometimes that means adjusting her clothes to better suit the lights.
During the company’s production of ‘Misery,’ for example, she said the lights were set up to capture a silhouette of the lead actress, one that made her look striking and terrifying.
“But the dress she was wearing was frumpy and she looked like a little head and a rectangle," Talavera-Moloney said. "So, we switched her costume so that we could get a great silhouette of her with the axe.”
‘Grease’ has a very large cast, meant to fill the roles of a high school class. It also began production several months ago, rolling over two major holidays, which made scheduling tough.
"And it’s community theater, like, you can’t ask too much of people when they’re free, right?" She said. "We want them to be committed and loyal and have the best show they could possibly have, but also, they do have lives outside of this.”
Talavera-Moloney and Geolz work full time for the theater, but they often stay outside of their regular hours to accommodate fittings for actors who work during the day. One actor rushes in on his lunch break for a fitting.
In the theater, costumes have to do so much; They help inform the type of character an actor is playing, they have to be safe, they have to play correctly under the lights and they have to move in ways that suit the choreography.
“You would think clothes would be easier, you get into clothes every day," Talavera-Moloney said. "They’re freaking complicated. Not just wearing them, but also what they have to do and how they have to be perceived.”
While they test outfits, take pictures and finalize any needed adjustments, Geolz is sewing together sleeves to add to the robes for the Beauty School Dropout dream sequence.
"I love putting people in clothes," he said. "I like watching them turn into the character once they put the costume on. It just makes me feel like even more a part of the production that I’m able to be that and help them bring their character to life.”
Hitting your marks
As opening weekend draws ever closer, the rehearsals for ‘Grease’ continue to ramp up. Co-director and co-choreographer Capri Williams takes the helm at this particular rehearsal, guiding her actors through a massive dance scene that begins act two.
Williams pulls from her own dance background as she designs the choreography, along with her co-director and co-choreographer Eric Smead. The show is iconic for being bright, colorful and high-energy. And the movement has to reflect that.
“And so, the way that we started was we talked about how true we wanted to stay to the classic and we wanted to stay as true as possible," Williams said. "We didn’t want to modernize it, we didn’t want to go away from some of those thematics that are throughout the show.”
But, before there could be choreography, there had to be a plan for the entire production.
Williams said the scenic design, the way the stage is set up, is more important than almost anything else when it comes to choreography.
"Height is important, different levels of elevation to create dynamic visuals for an audience," she said. "But then it also gives you so many more options for choreography, compared to all just being on stage proper the entire time.”
She says she and Smead worked closely with Fletcher before they even began choreography to know what would be possible.
“It kind of starts from ground zero with lots of big dreams in your concept meeting, kind of where you want to take this show, and then from there it kind of morphs and evolves," Smead said. "Unfortunately, we don’t have all the money in the world to just do what we need and want.”
And some of the choreography has to wait until the cast set, to better understand their ability levels and comforts. In the school dance scene, the entire cast comes together for a huge, coordinated song that fans of both the movie and the stage play will recognize – the Hand Jive.
Smead said choreographing a scene like that is a massive effort.
“We kinda started with we’re gonna play, we’re gonna try things, we’re gonna not say no right away," he said.
Williams said working in community theater has taught her to be adjustable and flexible when designing choreography.
“I design and create movement for the body of the people that are going to be performing it," she said. "Because what looks good on me, might not look good on everybody.”
And a lot of building the choreography, especially for those big scenes, starts with research. Williams and Smead find videos of types of lifts or moves they’d like to implement, and then work with actors to see what’s actually possible.
When purchasing the rights to the stage play, there are several pieces of music designed for the musical that don’t appear in the movie. And several songs from the film, don’t technically make it onto the stage. But Williams said they were given the option to purchase those movie songs as well.
“Which we knew was really important to keep those familiar tracks in and I think that the audience is really gonna appreciate that," she said. "I know that we have appreciated it because we love that music, too, and it feels a little weird if it’s not there.”
And when you’re working with a musical like ‘Grease,’ it can be about finding the balance between the choreography that people know and expect to see, and giving it your own flare.
“’Grease’ is iconic, right?" Smead said. "So, thinking through ‘Greased Lightning’ movement. Everybody knows the ‘Greased Lightning’ movement, you have to put it in there. Does that mean we do it the whole time? I don’t know you’ll have to come find out.”
In that sequence, where the main male cast dance around the car, Smead says they wanted to make that scene about more than just a souped-up car.
“And then lean into that dream side as what does Kennicky really desire with this car?" Smead said. "And what is he imagining it to be? And so, that kind of inspired the movement and some of the things that are happening on stage during that as well.”
But there’s something magical about when the show comes together, even in the rehearsal space.
“Honestly, one of the best parts is when you’re teaching it, and it clicks, and the thing that you saw in your head and you wrote on paper come to life before you and it make sense," Smead said. "And you’re like ‘okay, I wasn’t crazy.’”
The Civic Theatre's production of 'Grease' opens July 17 and runs for the next three weekends.
