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Good morning all,

Need some help in designing the structure for the pool in Metamorphoses. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Crit.  We did Metamorphosis in our summer teen Actors Conservatory in NYC.  It was challenging, but the kids enjoyed it and overall the show was quite successful.  It was one of my favorite sets.  We definitely wanted to go with a pool and the imagery of the water.  Hope these photos will be useful.  The pool was an Intex which we bought online at a reasonable price.  I really wanted a rectangle but those were out of our budget.  We had to put up the show in three weeks and couldn't install the pool till tech week, so we had to cut some corners.  We would have liked to do a facing on the front, which would have been a much better look. In the beginning I thought the interior of the pool would bother me, but with the gobos and lighting, I thought it worked.  These pics were a dress, but we filled the water level higher for the performances.

Up center is a projection screen.  We also created a film of the Hades scene with the actors that added a nice video element and an opportunity to bring in more students to film and produce it. The projections also helped with titles for each of the stories and transitions.

There are several challenges like wet costumes, costume changes, towels - so it was good we had a dryer available to us.  Also, with bare feet, we established very detailed safety protocols backstage etc.  Entrances and exits needed to be choreographed precisely to keep it safe and smooth.

One mistake we made was not putting a pad under the pool floor, so we sprung a pin hole leak from walking on it.  It was easily fixed, and we should have realized that the vinyl against the stage floor was not a good idea.  We also had to install a 2-step unit up center so actors could get in and out easily.  We used a plastic step unit, padding the bottom and weighting it in place.  It worked fine.

Hope this gives you some ideas and feel free to reach out if I can be of help.

Robert Laconi
Theatre Arts Center NY
Robert.Laconi@gmail.com

Good morning all,

Need some help in designing the structure for the pool in Metamorphoses. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Crit.  We did Metamorphosis in our summer teen Actors Conservatory in NYC.  It was challenging, but the kids enjoyed it and overall the show was quite successful.  It was one of my favorite sets.  We definitely wanted to go with a pool and the imagery of the water.  Hope these photos will be useful.  The pool was an Intex which we bought online at a reasonable price.  I really wanted a rectangle but those were out of our budget.  We had to put up the show in three weeks and couldn't install the pool till tech week, so we had to cut some corners.  We would have liked to do a facing on the front, which would have been a much better look. In the beginning I thought the interior of the pool would bother me, but with the gobos and lighting, I thought it worked.  These pics were a dress, but we filled the water level higher for the performances.

Up center is a projection screen.  We also created a film of the Hades scene with the actors that added a nice video element and an opportunity to bring in more students to film and produce it. The projections also helped with titles for each of the stories and transitions.

There are several challenges like wet costumes, costume changes, towels - so it was good we had a dryer available to us.  Also, with bare feet, we established very detailed safety protocols backstage etc.  Entrances and exits needed to be choreographed precisely to keep it safe and smooth.

One mistake we made was not putting a pad under the pool floor, so we sprung a pin hole leak from walking on it.  It was easily fixed, and we should have realized that the vinyl against the stage floor was not a good idea.  We also had to install a 2-step unit up center so actors could get in and out easily.  We used a plastic step unit, padding the bottom and weighting it in place.  It worked fine.

Hope this gives you some ideas and feel free to reach out if I can be of help.

Robert Laconi
Theatre Arts Center NY
Robert.Laconi@gmail.com

Good morning all,

Need some help in designing the structure for the pool in Metamorphoses. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Good morning all,

Need some help in designing the structure for the pool in Metamorphoses. Any help would be greatly appreciated.