Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
It has been a busy month, and I am currently in Richmond, Virginia. The Richmond Scottish Rite Theatre appeared on my radar again last month. The timing was less than ideal, since I was packing to leave for the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado. On September 17, I received word from Art DeHoyos that the Richmond Scottish Rite was selling their building and had no plans for the historic scenery collection. I immediately contacted Rex Hutchens, as a few years ago we tried to purchase the Winona Masonic scenery collection in an online auction.
In regard to the Richmond Scottish Rite, I was well aware of the potential sale, just not the timeline. Immediately after receiving the information from Art, I was on the phone with Rex, asking if he was still interested in acquiring a collection. After chatting briefly with him about the compositions, I contacted the Scottish Rite Secretary in Richmond to get more details, leaving a message. When I headed west to Colorado on the morning of September 19, I had little hope that I would ever see the Richmond scenery, or that it would find a new Scottish Rite home.
I did not think about the Richmond Scottish Rite again until Rex called last Sunday, October 18. By Thursday, October 22, I was on the road again. The plan was to arrive in Richmond the next day; it was an eighteen-hour drive. I would catalogue the collection over the weekend, from 8AM-6PM each day, and depart on Monday. I needed to determine the scope of the collection and whether the drops would withstand the move. If everything checked out, I would come up with a transportation plan based on the impending sale of the building. Fortunately for me, I had slide collections from both Larry Hill and Lance Brockman, taken when they documented the drops a few decades ago. Prior to my departure I created a drop inventory based on the slides.
In addition to the slides, I knew that Toomey & Volland sold scenery to the Richmond Scottish Rite in 1920. From 1920 to 1921 the Richmond Scottish Rite enlarged their existing building and renovated the stage area. This meant that the Richmond Scottish Rite either acquired a new collection from Toomey & Volland or purchased additional settings for their existing collection. Regardless of what was purchased in 1920, the entire scenery collection was moved to a new building by 1968.
The move meant that the collection was possibly reduced at this time. In the case of the St. Paul Scottish Rite, their move to a new building meant that the collection shrunk in size by one-third. For example, if a setting consisted of a leg drop, cut drop and backdrop, either the leg drops or cut drops were removed, effectively reducing the number of line sets required in the new space. This same thing may have happened in Richmond; meaning that the excess scenery was thrown out during the move, or it was tucked away somewhere in the building.Within ten minutes of arriving at the Richmond Scottish Rite, I had answers to many of my questions. There were only 49 lines hanging in the air, and most of the original sandwich battens had been removed; replaced with jute webbing at the top and pipe pockets at the bottom. Heaving a sigh of relief, I contacted Rex and explained the situation. Over the course of the day I shared photos with him and began to plan for the future move.
Because of the limited number of drops, there was more time to play with lighting while documenting each scene. All was fun and games until the Secretary mentioned that there were about four drops tucked away above the stage left storage area. No problem. I was ahead of schedule and would have ample time on Sunday afternoon to unroll the drops, as well as fully documenting the unique rigging system. When I arrived at 8AM on Sunday morning, I asked to see where the four rolled drops were stored…
…and this is when everything changed.
There were many, many more drops stored above the properties room, stage left. Unfortunately, they were beneath a dozen lighting instruments, chairs, and storage racks. This was not a simple hand-them-down-and-unroll-them project. In a glance, I knew that this would tack on an extra day, and it would be dirty work. Now cataloguing a collection of hanging scenery is an entirely different task than lowering and unrolling drops that have been compressed for a few decades. First of all, there is a dirt factor. Within minutes of handling rolled drops that are a century old, your clothes, hair, neck, face and hands are covered in black soot. The drops require gentle handling or clouds of dust float everywhere. Needless to say, I was not appropriately dressed for the task at hand, nor was the crew.
This project required many hands, and there were five of us: Michael Powers, Richard Finkelstein, Bridgette Dennett and Sarah Phillips. Bridgette and I handed down the drops to Sarah (on ladder), then Michael and Richard. After a few drops, I realized that we needed a sixth person, so I tracked down Paul, our Scottish Rite host that morning. Thank goodness he was willing to help. The addition of Paul meant that Sarah was able to stay on the ladder, while Paul, Michael and Richard placed drops on the stage floor. Slowly, and carefully, the drops were placed from the upstage wall to mid-stage; twenty-five in all.
Meanwhile…
The stage lights had also malfunctioned, so while Michael was dealing with that issue, Bridgette, Sarah and I unrolled each scene. Richard photographed each piece from the top of a ladder, as he able to adjust the skewed perspective. While he was doing that, I climbed halfway up the ladder to photograph entire composition, then took detail images from the floor, catalogued the scenes, and labeled each drop for transport. Several top battens were broken, which meant it was not an easy unroll and re-roll task. However, we finished the project by 6PM.
Tomorrow, Richard, Michael and I will finish documenting the remaining scenes that are still hanging. Michael and I depart on Tuesday for the two-day drive home. It has been a challenging, but delightful time, as we have had the opportunity to photograph the settings under various lighting conditions. I will return to my blog “Tales of a Scenic Artist and Scholar” next week.
To be continued…
