Today's craft project: make a Communicator!

This evening I made my first communicator, a prototype and an experiment. I have a few things I'll do differently on the next ones, but I'm still pleased with this first effort.

I started with some brass wire that I bent and straightened into the shape of a communicator. Then I used a special clay sculpting mesh to form the body. Happily, the mesh looks like the mesh screen found on the original communicators, so I left some sticking up for that.



For the body, I used black Sculpey III clay. Once you knead it for 10 minutes, it's pretty supple to work with, and since it's black, I don't have to paint it! I rolled out the sculpey and tucked it around the frame.



I need to keep the brass wire showing, however. That's part of the look.



Here's the finished product.

Hair, hair, hair

One of the things the original show was noted for was the fabulous hairstyles for the women. Here are a few pictures I've gathered.
Yeoman Janice Rand is known for her basketweave hair style. This is definitely a wig. I made one for the show we put on in 2002. I will make a new one for this show.



Here's Uhura.



And here. Her hairstyle varied a bit from time to time.



Nurse Chapel changed her hair more often than anyone else. This is the soft blonde look, needing just a quarter can of hairspray.



There's another Nurse Chapel hairstyle in which her hair is steel bluish grey and looks like it was created in a welding shop instead of a hair salon! I don't think we'll be copying this one.


She looks so sad in this picture. But wouldn't you too, if you had to wear that on your head?

Captain's chair

Did you know that the captain's chair was built using this 1960s modern office chair? It's called the Madison chair.

Meet the newest cast member of our summer show!

Trina the Tribble! She worked hard at the Academy and is now a full-fledged member of Star Fleet. Right now she holds the rank of yeoman. Captain Kirk is not quite sure where on the bridge to station her. If she's too close to Uhura, Trina will distract the Communications Officer. On the other hand, he knows definitely to keep her away from the cafeteria and food replicator areas of the Enterprise!

These are the Voyages, these are the voyages . . .

That's the title song of the show we picked for our summer musical theatre workshop. Everyone seems excited so far. I'm busy re-working the script. The original had to be kept to under an hour, but now I'm free to expand it, to have Randy write new songs, to explore new characters, to boldly go where this musical couldn't quite go before. (CUE: rising music.)

One other difference in this show is cast size. The original had about 40 cast members. The challenge then was to create a few extra parts - maybe just a couple of lines or as part of a small ensemble - so that the kids felt they had something to do. Now, with 19 actors, I'm taking some of those extra parts and re-apportioning them to the other characters. We'll also have a fair amount of doubling and even tripling of roles -- which is great fun for the actors, who get to play not one but three roles. Three costumes, three identities.

Failed gunshots and other live theatre mishaps

In the show that Randy is in, And Then There Were None (at Driftwood Players, go see it!), a gun has to fire. I won't say how many times. It's a real gun that uses blanks and they have a gun master to keep watch over it. But if it fails to fire, he can hardly leap onto the stage to fix it. That's up to the actors to deal with - and deal with it they have.

The worst time was Saturday night when it failed to fire each time. When someone is charging at you and you have a gun in your hand and it fails to fire, what do you do? You can't rewrite the play and have the wrong person die. You can't say "bang" -- this is a moment of high tension and drama, not a cartoon. One actor proved resourceful and chose to conk the other person on the head with an ashtray. None of the actors blanked and it worked out.

Ominously enough, in the theatre lobby is a sign that reads, "Warning! There may be gunfire during this performance." For this show, new emphasis on "may".

Addendum note: they have a new gun.

And the Murderer is . . . .!

We're still settling down after watching Randy's preview performance of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. It was fabulous watching Randy act in a full play. He did a great job, although he says he dropped two lines. Hey, it was only the preview and he'd had such a long, busy work day. I've been running lines with him and I didn't notice it.

Tomorrow is opening night. That should be very good.

The show was great. It has mysterious and puzzling parts, comic bits, action, suspicion, and builds to an intense ending. I wish I could write more about it, but it is a mystery and it would spoil the fun if I divulged anything I shouldn't.

If you live in Western Washington, do come. Go to www.DriftwoodPlayers.com to enquire about tickets. The show runs June 11 to 27.