I've done this marvelous show at the HS where I taught, and yes, we built a pool:
Imagine four ladders (out of 2x4's) with wide rungs, on edge, touching each other so they make a square.
Surround it 4' away by four more ladders on edge, of the same "rung" distance.
Frame the inner square inside with sheets of plywood. Frame the outer square outside with plywood.
Join the two with plywood on top, to make a deck around which the actors can walk.
Home Depot had a huge cheap roll of heavy plastic with which we lined the inner square (overlapping a few times).
(We first added some "steps" so we had 3 depths of water...uh...18", 12" and 4"...something like that).
We lined the bottom with all the bath mats Target had for sale that day.
The weight of the water (it's concrete under our stage) holds the plastic liner tight against its walls.
We filled the pool from our paint sink. It was arctic until we turned on the hot water tank above our dressing rooms (that served the paint sink), then drained a tank's worth of water after each run, and refilled with hot water as late as possible, so the water became only tepid.
We experimented a million ways to make the deck less slippery; I can't really recommend a great solution, but the show does include points where the deck gets mopped up, and the height of the water is critical to minimize spill but still serve the story.
We drained the pool once with a couple of pumps (a long run to our loading dock) when we feared a leak -- it gave us a chance to rehearse some of the trickier in-water bits, to get the lighting right, without waterlogging our actors -- and during strike again, getting rid of the last inch of water by surrounding the liner and carrying it outside to dump.
It was quite the adventure. We rehearsed a few times in the local swimming pool, discovered which fabrics stayed opaque when wet, got show bathrobes instead of t-shirts, etc.
For many many reasons, it's my favorite and best show I've ever done (in 35 years), and was our first big Cappies win, too, for Best Play and about eight other categories.
I'd go on and on, but you can get in touch (are you in my FB group, Theatre Teachers Conspiracy ?) if you'd like to talk about the show more.
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Douglas "Chip" Rome
Theatre Consultant
Educational Stages
Burke VA
http://bit.ly/EdStageshttp://bit.ly/RWTEOview------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 04-29-2018 17:18
From: John Monteverde
Subject: Did you do the pool for Metamorphosis?
Big tech questions
Have any of you more adventurous school programs out there done Mary Zimmerman's METAMORPHOSIS and if so, how the heck did you do the pool of water? I know schools do it but I can't imagine how.
If you did pull off the pool, do you have actual designs available as to how? I'd pay for clear working designs.
And if you did the show without the pool of water, how? Did it work?
I love the show and would like to produce it next year but I'm stumped as to how.