Setting the Stage. David Hays
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Setting the Stage
This book is a 2017 selection inthe Driftless Connecticut Series,for an outstanding book in any fieldon a Connecticut topic or writtenby a Connecticut author.
SETTING THE STAGE
What We Do, How We Do It, and Why
DAVID HAYS
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS · MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown, CT 06459
© 2017 David Hays
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by April Leidig
Typeset in Garamond by Copperline Book Services, Inc.
The Driftless Connecticut Series is funded by the
Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund
at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
3 Long Day’s Journey into O’Neill 4
5 London, the Glorious City 21
7 Boston Again, and Tanglewood 28
8 Painting Lessons from a Virtuoso 31
14 “Gadg” and Getting Fired 59
15 Designing for Garson Kanin, and What It’s All About 64
18 Good Things and Not-So-Good Things 78
19 HUGHIE, and Strange Behavior 83
20 Two Designers and Survival 88
22 Repertory, Classics, a Falling Out 95
24 Musical Disaster and Success 105
25 More Musicals and a Fantastic Preview 113
29 My Sad Ending with José 135
30 Conceiving a Production 139
31 Violetta and the Parade 144
32 First Steps into Another World 147
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO Peter Feller, Willy Nolan, and Arnold Abramson; to Ron Bates, Joe Harbuck, and Charlie Bugbee; and to hundreds of other men and women I worked with to build, paint, set up, focus, and run all those plays, musicals, and operas (and the brassiere commercial).
Many thanks to thoughtful and helpful readers: first, Lary Bloom; then my Nancy and my daughter, Julia, and son, Dan; and Laine Dyer, plus Harry Haskell, Rick Horning, John Guare, Peter Walker, Jess Maghan, Dick Buel, J Ranelli, Howard Fishman, Joel Grey, Tandy Cronin, Glenn