Call me, beep me ... if you want a T: Link >>See page 2
Behind the curtain Clarence Brown Theatre exhibits work off-stage
Opinion: Strange love in a strange place >>See page 6
Men’s basketball signee enrolled in university courses >>See page 11
Volume 130 Issue 3
Megan Patterson Arts & Culture Editor When the curtain opens at the Clarence Brown Theatre this fall, there will be 100 characters on stage for opening night. The trick is that there will only be four actors. For the upcoming production of “The 39 Steps,” the Beacon decided to take an in-depth look at the behindthe-scenes preparation that went into this farcical rendition of an Alfred Hitchcock classic. A lot happens before the opening scene, and even more happens before the actors enter the picture. Joe Payne, the sound and projection designer for Clarence Brown Theatre, detailed how the design crew begins their preparation. “The play is chosen, and the whole design team all gets together with the director,” Payne said. “The director talks about the concept of the piece or the theme or mood or feeling of the piece and how he/she wants to portray the piece.” After the director sets the stage for the team, the individual designers begin production. Bill Black, the costume designer, starts each produc-
tion in the same way. Equipped with an elaborate chart outlining which roles the actors play in each scene, he begins his research. “My research for this play was that I read the novel that the movie was based on, which wasn’t very helpful because Hitchcock really changed it for the film,” Black said. “Then I watched the film, and online I found a bunch of stills from the movie for reference.” From the online stills featuring period dress of the 1930s, Black sketched out costumes for his production that fit with the established style of each individual character. “Sometimes that involves finding clothes and putting them together in the right way, and sometimes it involves making them from scratch,” Black said. “When it involves making them from scratch, the drawing goes to the draper and he makes that into a pattern.” The costume for the female spy character is a dress pattern, which Black found in a 1937 Sears catalogue. “You can see a lot of the way through the movie she is wearing a dark dress with a big white collar or a big white bow so that’s why I kept that,” Black said. “In the movie she had three or four different dresses but … we didn’t have time for her to make all those changes.” See CLARENCE BROWN on Page 7
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Photo by: Megan Patterson • The Daily Beacon
Friday, August 21, 2015