Remembering Barefoot...

Hey gang, Travis here. I’m a long time board member and Ground UP’s resident lighting and set designer.

Of course I think our production values are one of the big things that set us apart from our off-off piers, but so do the reviews, our audiences and colleagues. I think one of our finest moments of stagecraft was for last season’s BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. The scenery for this show was quintessential Ground UP Productions’ aesthetic; environmental and romantically realistic.

Neil Simon threw the director and designer a real ringer with this play, even in the most ideal circumstances. And ideal, our circumstances, were not. This production took place at our beloved Manhattan Theatre Source, which has to be one of the quirkiest theatre’s in the city; awkward architecture, an out of place spiral staircase, the most obtrusive control booth in history, plumbing in the middle of everything and a 3 inch sag in floor at center stage. However, it is that terrible space which gave us many of the delightful hallmarks of our BAREFOOT. We know how to work that room and pulled all of our favorite tricks.

Most of the enormous challenges we faced were written by Neil himself. Here’s a brief list: the ledge outside of the window must be walked on, a broken skylight through which it snows AND the climactic dialogue is delivered, a functioning kitchen as well as so many specifics about entrances and exits. To top it off, Act 1 is a bare apartment, Act 2 is fully furnished. For us, this was the clincher as the only effective way in and out of the theatre is through the audience door which is less than three feet wide!

Between the director, Lon, the technical director, Dan, our fearless leader and czar of good taste, Kate, and myself, we rose to every challenge! Using our favorite seating arrangement, we took advantage of the good that the theatre had to offer; beautiful exposed brick walls and hard wood floors from the 19^th Century and the door to the adjacent apartment building’s stairwell (to be used as the stairs to our ‘5^th floor walk-up’). Using some of our beautiful stock windows and doors we created the rest of the room and wrapped the audience 360 degrees so they would be as close as neighbors, peeping in on the newlywed characters. The director and I worked very hard on placing our entrances to get the most comedy out of actors making exaggerated crosses from bedroom to bathroom and back. We gave Mr. Simon his required ‘sunken’ living room and, the cou-de-gras, the skylight. What gave the mother of all scene changes it grace was the brilliance of Kate and Lon, choreographing an a-vista moving man extravaganza that literally pulled furniture out from under the audience’s butts to put onstage. Take that Neil Simon!

I can’t believe how much we pulled off inside such a small theatre. But of course, there were things the set couldn’t accomplish in such little space, so I thought I’d just let the lighting designer fix it. Oh crap, that’s me!!!

Here are some pictures and drawings that give a little insight into the process of creating BAREFOOT IN THE PARK.
An early sketches, some ideas came to fruition, others changed















































All of which became...

























Technical Drawings




















And the result?...








































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