Door Shakespeare

For most of last week, Mark, Nick, and myself were working up in Door County, Wisconsin helping them get everything ready for their Shakespeare Season.


Day 1:

We made the eight hour drive up to Sister's Bay, Wisconsin. Once we arrived, we met Michael Brandt and he helped us get acquainted with everyone else. We had a meeting and went over schedules. Amy showed us the plans for the space and let us know what she was trying to do with Door Shakespeare in her first season.We then took all of the posters and stamped them with a stamp made with the names of their sponsors.

Day 2:

This was the day intended for switching the seating around. For years, they were using this gate as their upstage, but this year they decided on a tree that was on the exact opposite side of the space. They have seaing for 190 people which includes a Queen's Box for reserved seating. So, all of the risers needed to be turned around and moved into a thrust. This took some of our math skills to figure out he geometry of the whole situation. As the risers got moved, we realized that we had kind of a mix and match of heights and lengths, so we started cutting legs off, or adding legs to them depending on what was needed. As that space started to take form, Michael Brandt and I took the gator to the mulch pile and started mulching the space. Michale had to leave a little early for something, and I continued doing that until five o'clock.

Day 3:

Was the day to go through the garage. We had to go through every last thing and separate them into piles: trash, keep, and take apart for wood. We also took an hour or two to build these prop totes. It probably wouldn't take everyone that long to do it, but Nick and I had our troubles. After we got those taken care of, we moved them out to the space and started working on the space some more. Mark and Mike worked on the risers while Nick and I made it look nice with mulch and clearing leaves and other things. We continued working until five o'clock.

Day 4:

The morning of day four was spent taking things apart so they could go into the trash or storage. We took flats apart and put a lot of wood into a pile to be burned. Nick and I loaded up my truck with trash and took it into town to drop off at the office dumpster. When we got back we brought costumes and props from the office and found space for them. Then we loaded up my truc with wood, and we took it down to the beach and started a fire. When all of the trash wood was burnt, I started loading stumps up and taking them to the space. The director of MacBeth had wanted some tree stumps to be part of his set. There were also pathways going throughout the woods, and since the performances were at night, I started going through the woods and gathering dead birch logs, which are white, to line the path so the actors could see. This continued until five o'clock.

Day 5:

This was the last day. We made sure the risers were all good to go. Nick and I made sure that the path was fully lined and ready for traffic. We then proceeded to take apart the old stage that they had been using by the gate. Some of the wood was good and some of it was bad to we separaed them into piles. This went until about two o'clock then we headed to the office said goodbye and took off for home.


I really enjoyed this opportunity. We met a lot of people and had a really good time getting to know them and helping them transform their space. They were incredibly grateful for our help, and we are incredibly grateful to say that we were a part of it. We are already planning a trip to go back and see the shows in the space that we helped create.