Francesca DeCicco
Technical Director
Colorado Shakespeare Festival 2018
Festival Technical Director
Shows Included:
Love's Labour's Lost | Cyrano de Bergerac
Richard III | You Can't Take it with You
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is a summer stock theater company with two operating venues, one indoor and one outdoor space. A typical season includes two rotating repertory productions in each performance space, for a total of four productions per season. Our Summer 2018 season included Love's Labour's Lost and Cyrano de Bergerac in our Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, as well as Richard III and You Can't Take it with You in the University Theatre.
As the Festival Technical Director I managed each shows material budget of $5k - $6.5k, supervised a shop of 4 staff carpenters, 3 carpentry interns, and over hire labor, oversaw the technical design and delivery of 4 productions, and collaborated with designers and department heads to ensure a successful delivery of each production.
CYRANO DE BEGERAC PRODUCTION PHOTOS. The top and bottom photos are views of the completed set of Cyrano de Bergerac taken from the center of the house.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST PRODUCTION PHOTOS. The top photo is an image of the completed Love's Labour's Lost set at pre-show. The bottom photo is a view of the same production during a performance.
RICHARD III PRODUCTION PHOTOS. The left image is a view of the finished Richard III set taken from the center balcony. In the right photo Richard enters the stage sitting on the throne. This entrances required two center sections of the upstage platforms to be removed during intermission and the wagon with the throne was operated by stagehands with a push stick.
YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU PRODUCTION PHOTOS. The left photo is a zoomed-in view of the upstage platform and walls. The right photo is a view of the finished You Can't Take it with You set taken from the center balcony.
CHANGEOVER VIDEO. This is a timelapse video of the changeover from You Can't Take it with You into Richard III. Besides the upstage platforms and stairs, the entirety of the Richard III set was flown for storage. Meanwhile the You Can't Take it with You walls were unbolted and stored in our offstage scene shop spaces upstage and stage right. The You Can't Take it with You upstage center platform, along with the walls that sat on it, was a single large wagon that stored many of the furniture pieces and moved into the upstage center shop space as its storage position.
CHANGEOVER PLAN EXAMPLE. My ATD, Bethany, and I developed the changeover plans for the two productions. We revised these plans as we received feedback from the changeover crew, until we reached a finalized procedure.
BUILD & CHANGEOVER CALENDAR. As the TD, I had to manage the build and changeovers of all the season productions. When the outdoor changeovers would overlap with the indoor build, or there were overlapping changeovers, this calendar aided me in forming the daily plan.