by Kyle Wells [email protected] Brooks Secondary School drama students are presenting their production of The Music Man starting Friday, November 18 and along with the acting the sets will be one of the main stars.
The musical, written by Meredith Wilson and originally performed on Broadway in 1957, is about a con man named Harold Hill who comes to small-town America to sell band instruments and skip town with the cash. Things get complicated when Hill starts to fall for the local librarian, Marian Paroo, who sees right through Hill’s hoodwink.
For the production Vancouver Island University (VIU) carpentry teacher Gary Huculak, carpentry shop assistant Wayne Jones and their Level 1 Carpentry Foundations class built an entire town on moveable sets. River City, Iowa, the play’s setting, features a library, an old-fashioned pool hall, a livery stable, a gymnasium, a grocery store and even a gazebo. All the set pieces are double-sided so to change scenes the set only has to be reversed. This is an important space saver, especially in a theatre like Max Cameron, where there is little wing space.
In total, 40 feet (approximately 12 metres) of town buildings have been built for the play, the most set built for any production in Huculak’s memory. All of the sets were built and painted at VIU and then disassembled and reassembled at Max Cameron Theatre for performances. Props, such as a faux piano and the gazebo, were also built at VIU and transported to Brooks.
The play is set in 1912 and the sets have been designed to reflect that period. Huculak said the individual buildings and designs are not based on anything specific but that the 1930 painting American Gothic by Grant Wood has been an influence on the overall look of the set.
Local artists were invited to paint the sets and a large number of them answered the call. The talent of Shelley Thomson, Meghan Hildebrand, Autumn Skye Morrison, Blake Drezet, Lyla Smith, Ann Trousdell, Norma Scoot and Graham Mahy helped bring the sets to life by adding colour and design.
Hildebrand became involved after she complimented drama teacher Brenda Laycock and her students on the set for their last production, Village of Idiots. Laycock invited Hildebrand, along with any friends, to help with the next production and Hildebrand took her up on the offer.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Hildebrand. “It’s kind of a community service for the students.”
“It’s a nice way to get involved in the community and with youth and hang out with your friends and paint with them,” said Morrison.
Drezet worked for many years in Vancouver in set design and has been happy to lend his knowledge to the task of painting the sets. Drezet has even painted a set for The Music Man before, in Vancouver about six years ago. He said the sets they are building here are similar to those he worked on in Vancouver and he has been impressed by their quality.
Josh Bedford is in the unique position of being in both the carpentry program building the sets and in the drama program putting on the play, giving him the opportunity to act on his own sets. Bedford worked on the gazebo, which will house the band for the play’s music, and also on some props.
In the play Bedford plays Marcellus Washburn, a former con man who is old friends with the main character. Bedford said he has always been taught that no “theatre fairies” exist to magically make sets appear and that a lot of behind-the-scenes hard work goes into a production. Bedford said he now believes in theatre fairies but only because he has become one.
“You kind of get to know the play a little bit more because you’re on both sides of it,” said Bedford. “It’s a lot of fun; great bunch of people putting it together.”
Something to look out for during the show is the painted books on the library shelves of the set. Each carpenter who helped build the set, and some of the painters who helped out, painted their names on the book spines, some with phony titles.
The Music Man plays at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19, and Wednesday to Friday November 23 to 25 with doors open at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $10 and are available from Brooks or at the door.
