Category: Twin City Scenic Co.

Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 155 – W. K. Brown

The stage effects that were discovered in Fort Scott, Kansas, at the Scottish Rite theatre were just a few common examples in a long history of designing spectacle for the stage. The 1924 version of Pepper’s Ghost for the 30th degree and the volcanic eruption for the 17th degree were relatively tame when compared with the commercial touring shows from the early twentieth century.

Fort Scott Scottish Rite setting for Pepper’s Ghost illusion in the 30th degree. Photograph by Wendy Waszut-Barrett, 2015.
Fort Scott Scottish Rite setting for Pepper’s Ghost illusion in the 30th degree. Photograph by Wendy Waszut-Barrett, 2015.
The man changing into the skeleton. Pepper’s Ghost illusion for the 30th degree in Fort Scott, Kansas, at the Scottish Rite. Photograph by Wendy Waszut-Barrett, 2015.

Stage carpenters and scenic artists, such as David A. Strong, initially designed scenic spectacles for Masonic degree productions. C. S. King of Sosman & Landis and W. K. Brown of Twin City Scenic repeatedly constructed certain stage effects for Scottish Rite theaters when degree productions initially appeared in the Southern Jurisdiction. They were just two individuals of the hundreds employed by scenic studios throughout the country. Today I look at Brown who was responsible for designing the stage machinery for many Scottish Rite Valleys, including the Minneapolis Scottish Rite where he was a member.

Twenty years after Charles S. King installed the stage machinery at the Grand Opera House in Minneapolis, a newspaper article discussed the venue’s first stage carpenter, William Knox Brown.

William Knox Brown, stage carpenter and Scottish Rite Mason in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Published on January 13, 1901, the article was titled, “Experts Behind the Scenes.” It included a brief synopsis of Brown’s career as a stage carpenter. The main title line was followed by a subheading that stated, “Ability of Men Who Are Not Visible to the Audience is Tested by Such a Production as Hanlon Bros. Le Voyage En Suisse.” A series of illustrations followed, exploring the duties of stagehands, examining “Who They Are and What They Do – Some of Their Peculiar Experiments.” It was the image of stagehands working the lines that initially caught my eye.

Stage hands moving the lines in the 1901 article that described “Le Voyage en Suisse.”
1901 article, “Experts Behind the Scenes” with summary of W. K. Brown’s experience as a stage carpenter.

Brown, Theodore Hays and William P. Davis started the Twin City Scenic Company, initially working out of the Bijou Opera House in Minneapolis. A wonderful history has already been written about the company and was published in the 1987 exhibition catalogue, “The Twin City Scenic Collection: Popular Entertainment 1895-1929.” It was Brown’s connection to touring spectacles and Davis’ history at the Chicago Civic Auditorium that I would like to highlight today as I continue to examine those who engineered stage effects. Theodore Hays was the business manager, Brown was in charge of the stage mechanics, and Davis led the painting at Twin City Scenic. All three had the necessary connections to make their endeavor a success. Brown had worked extensively for the Hanlon Bros. while Davis had functioned as the primary scenic artist at the Chicago Civic Auditorium.

The Star Tribune article noted that the “ruler of this realm behind the footlights” was titled “stage carpenter,” then proceeded to explain all of the different jobs associated with the technical elements of many productions. What really caught me eye was the description of the Bijou stage space in 1901.

Illustration in 1901 article depicting scene change for “Le Voyage en Suisse.”

Here is an excerpt that I found fascinating:

“The stage proper was divided by the old system of grooves, which were used to hold up the scenery into divisions, one, two, three and four, where the stage was extra deep, sometimes five and six. Grooves are a mechanical contrivance in which the scenes slide back and forth. This methods of stage setting is very seldom employed at the present time, the more modern arrangements of setting scenes in a box shape, supporting them with braces and connecting them by lash lines, being more common use. One as styled above is the first space back of the curtain line, and is five or more feet in depth, according to the size of the stage. Spaces two, three and four are equal to the distances from one, towards the rear. There are few theatrical productions that require more extensive stage room than the Hanlon Brother’s greatest spectacle, ‘A Trip to Switzerland.’”

The article noted that Brown was a “mechanic of experience” and “one of the best stage carpenters in the country” with a “thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the art of stage mechanism.” It then went on to describe his experience since first arriving in Minneapolis as a stage carpenter in 1882.

He was in his second year of presiding over the Bijou and credited with “that rare quality of being able to control men without trouble.” Brown started his career in Minneapolis as stage carpenter at the Grand Opera House in 1882. He also worked at the Grand Opera House in St. Paul before eventually transferring to the Bijou and the People’s Theatre. Brown left the area for work at a variety of opera houses by 1887, including Burd’s Opera House in Davenport, Iowa, Harris Theater in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Henrietta Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. He was later hired by the Hanlon Bros. as their master machinist for the production of “Superba.” Brown not only directed the staging of “Superba,” but also was engaged at the Hanlon Bros. for their private stage and workshop in Cohaset, Massachusetts. At this facility, Brown repaired and tested new stage effects and machinery.

The production of “Superba” by the Hanlon Brothers. This is the show where W. K. Brown was the stage carpenter.

I immediately thought of the “Albert, Grover and Burridge Studio” in Chicago where they had a space to light and display the completed scenes. Were the studios in Chicago and Cohaset part of a movement to construct spaces with theatrical stages to design, test and market new products for their clientele.

Chicago studio of “Albert, Grover & Burridge.” The space had a place to stage competed scenes for clients after they were removed from the paint frames.

To be continued…

Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 151 – John Z. Wood and the Twin City Scenic Company Collection

Part 151: John Z. Wood and the Twin City Scenic Company Collection

John Z. Wood traveled extensively for work after the financial travesty caused by his stepson Horace C. Tuttle in 1896. After painting for the Winnipeg Theatre, Wood journey to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and painted scenery for a variety of venues. I often wondered what drew Wood to Minneapolis. It might have been the connections that another Rochester Art Club founder, Harvey Ellis, had to the area. Ellis settled in the St. Paul, Minnesota, during 1886 and worked throughout the region for seven years before returning to Rochester. Some of Ellis’ designs include the Mabel Tainter Memorial Building in Menomonie, Wisconsin, and Pillsbury Hall, at the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis (East Bank).

It was in Minneapolis that Wood worked for the Twin City Scenic Company. His designs for drop curtains are currently part of the Twin City Scenic Co. collection in the Performing Arts Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries. The backs of some designs include the name Robert J. Mork, a salesman for the Twin City Scenic Co. A few of Wood’s paintings also have competitive scenic studio stamps and markings on the backs, such as the Great Western Stage Equipment Co.

John Z. Wood design with Twin City Scenic Co. stamp and “Mork,” the name of a salesman. Twin City Scenic Co. Collection (PA43), Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.
John Z. Wood design with “Mork,” the name of a salesman. Twin City Scenic Co. Collection (PA43), Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.

I keep referring to the scenery collections at the University of Minnesota and should explain its significance. Here is the link for the collections: https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch

 

Here is what the scenery collection search page. To do a search for John Z. Wood, type his name in the keywords box.
This is one of the examples from the scenery collection search on John Z. Wood that will pop up during a search.

 

If it were not for Lance Brockman’s passion to pass on historical painting techniques and acquire these collections to preserve a disappearing heritage, I would be doing something else entirely today.

From 1989-1991, I processed two scenery collections (Great Western Stage Equipment Co. collection and the Holak collection) while attending the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate student. A decade later, I help design, write the text, and assign all of the metadata for the online scenery collection database while completing my graduate work. All the while, I replicated the painting techniques for both small-scale renderings and full-scale scenery, mainly on my own time. My introduction to this material at the age of nineteen shifted my focus from performance to scenic art and design. I was immediately hooked on this aesthetic and the scenic artists who painted visual spectacle for popular entertainment venues – especially Scottish Rite theatres.

Lance Brockman was instrumental in acquiring the Twin City Scenic Collection for the University of Minnesota as an educational tool for theatre students, artists and all others interested in this theatrical heritage. Portions of the Twin City Scenic Co. collection were displayed in a museum exhibit and catalogue titled “The Twin City Scenic Collection: Popular Entertainment 1895-1929.” The exhibit ran from April 5 – June 14, 1987 and was curated by Brockman at the University Art Museum, located in Northrup Auditorium on the east bank of the Minneapolis campus. Ironically, this was the year that I started my college career, so I never saw the exhibit!

The catalogue that accompanied the show was dedicated to John R. Rothgeb. He had passed away in December of 1986, just four months prior to the opening of the exhibit. Rothgeb was a theatre professor at the University of Texas (Austin) who first linked the significance of Scottish Rite collections with theatre history. He contacted many Scottish Rite Valleys throughout the country inquiring about their scenery collections. Rothgeb’s scholarly contributions are monumental and worth study in their own right. Much of his research is located in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. He was particularly interested in Thomas G. Moses and the Sosman & Landis Studio. This was one of major reasons that prompted my trip to Texas last fall after the Scottish Rite photo shoot in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Twin City Scenic exhibit catalogue was dedicated to Rothgeb. Brockman wrote, “He will be missed, but the groundwork that he established will provide the necessary foundation ultimately to preserve for future generations both an integral link with nineteenth-century heritage of American theatre and an understanding of “the romantic tradition of painted scenery.”

As part of the dedication page, Brockman included two paragraphs from Rothgeb’s unfinished essay. It is well worth including in its entirety here, as his sentiment is even more significant at this particular point in time:

“The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in American are rich in theatrical history, but little remains of the romantic tradition of painted scenery. As each year passed, there are fewer who can recall the beauty and delight evoked by a finely executed painted drop. For the very nature of scenery implies its fugitive quality. One interesting aspect of this painterly tradition, the ad curtain is nearly gone and forgotten, for even those who remember seeing them in theatres have their memories dimmed. Theatrical history today tends to look upon turn-of-the-century through the eyes of the reformers of the “new Stagecraft” such as Hiram Moderwell: “We now rarely see and old-fashioned ‘drop’ scene, and have almost forgotten how absurd it looks.” [H. Moderwell, “Theatre of Today” (New York: John Lane Company, 1914), 21]. Today the ad curtain is occasionally used in revivals of melodramas so that the audience can hiss at the villain, smile at the scenery, and feed self-satisfied with the sophistication of the 1980s. The theatre of 1880, however, was vital almost beyond our imagination, consisting of perhaps 2,000 working theatres across the country with an audience made up of nearly every citizen. As a part of the scenic tradition of this period, the phenomenon of the ad curtain interestingly illustrates the commercial course of our cultural evolution. – John R. Rothgeb.”

 

To be continued…

Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 147 – The Search for John Z. Wood

There is that certain feeling that I get when looking for something that I have misplaced. I can see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, repeatedly going back to the same spot over and over again. Eventually I locate the lost object, often in the exact same location where I knew it had to be!

I experience this same feeling while doing research, whether it be on scenic artists or Masonic scenery. There are certain places and times that I keep returning to, expecting something to finally appear. It was this same intuition that worked well for me at Fort Scott, Kansas, when we were removing the historical scenery collection for transport. It was one of the reasons why I crawled on my hands and knees through the filth digging in the crack between the wall and floor that was twenty feet above the stage. I am usually successful if I follow my instinct, whether it is research or painting. This persistent search resulted in the discovery of Thomas G. Moses’ personal artifacts. I knew that something was up there waiting to be found, so I just kept looking.

Last month, I finally tracked down a scenic artist that I have been searching for since receiving an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program grant to process the Great Western Stage Equipment Company collection for the Performing Arts archives. At this same time, I was introduced to the Twin City Scenic Company collection and the art of John Z. Wood. I immediately was under the spell of Wood’s paintings and enthralled with his designs and painting techniques. Since then, I have spent thousands of hours of my own time searching telephone directories, census documents, and fine art books to track him down. I wrote letters to historical societies and museums, made onsite visits to peruse various archives, and even traveled across the country to view fine art.

Wood’s paintings were unique and very different from all of the other scenic art designs from the other historical scenery collections. There was a greater depth to his compositions and the color palette was much richer. Wood’s paintings also incorporated an interesting finish, giving each painting a slight sheen. This suggested that he was using either a different binder, applying a final warm glaze, or sealing his final product. However, it was his foliage painting that absolutely captivated me as a nineteen-year-old artist and a technique that allowed me to identify even unsigned his art works. There was a lacey quality to the foliage painting that I had never seen in any other fine art piece – except once at a thrift store. I immediately bought that battered print because it reminded me of his work. It now hangs on a wall where it is one of the first images I see every morning.

Detail of John Z. Wood foliage painting. John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).

Wood’s paintings were very romantic. He painted large soft areas of warm color and then allowed individual leaves to magically emerged from these welcoming masses. For me, this was absolute magic. As artists, we always talk about developing our own individual style. I desperately wanted to develop a style like John Z. Wood.

Over the years, I kept going back to many of the same places to continue my research and was able to track down a few bits and pieces of Wood’s fine art pieces. However, his personal life or professional appointments remained shrouded in mystery. His fine art primarily hung on walls at residences along the east coast and I had to wonder what had brought him to work in the Midwest at the Twin City Scenic Company in Minneapolis. Why leave an obviously successful career in fine art for the theatre career much later in life?

John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).
John Z. Wood design for a drop curtain. Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin City Scenic Company collection (PA43).

In 2001, I tracked down another Wood painting at a private residence in New Jersey. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to make a side trip to see the painting while visiting close friends in the area. Melissa Semmes-Thorne and made a special trip to Chatham, New Jersey.

Mrs. Glover in front of her John Z. Wood painting in Chatham, New Jersey.

There, Mrs. Glover offered us a cold drink and explained everything she knew about the artwork and the artist – which was virtually nothing. My heart sank when she started the conversation with, “Well, I actually know very little about him.” She had no idea that Wood also designed for the theatre and my trip seemed to be a waste. Mrs. Chatham could only explain that her father purchased the painting from the actual artist, known to be a very famous painter in the region. That was really my only clue – he lived in the area – at some point. So Wood was a resident of New Jersey or New York? Based on her story, he was also still living when her father bought the painting around the turn of the century.

Since that trip, I have discovered very little additional information – until last month. The continuous scanning and uploading of historic documents have changed everything for my research. In many ways, Wood’s story paralleled that of Thomas G. Moses, just ten years earlier as he was born in 1846. He was a prolific fine artist and had connections with Minnesota artists.

To be continued…

Twin City Scenic Company – Hades Scene

I am back to one of my favorite Masonic scenes – Hell, Hades, Dante, Inferno, or “you name that that favorite underworld scene.”

It is for the 18th degree. Main message for this particular scene– don’t fall prey to temptation or you will suffer great torments. I know it is an extremely simplified version of the degree, but I hate to put up any Masonic image that could possibly make people think “devil worshippers.” They are not.

I have been compiling a North American database of Masonic installations (primarily on Scottish Rite scenery, but also with a smattering of Shrines, Commanderies, Grottos, and Blue Lodge paintings). While cross referencing my list with images that I remember from the U of MN scenery database I stumbled across the following sketches by Twin City Scenic.

I remembered seeing the same composition in Grand Forks. It was rolled up with a shrine cut drop and not in use. Neither of the drops are from the original 1914 Sosman & Landis collection (Chicago, Illinois). They were from the Twin City Scenic Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota

These two renderings are from the Twin City Scenic Company Collection (PA43). Unfortunately, they are not in the same box. M160 is in Box 11 and M161 (one with spatter) is in Box 12.

Again, here is the link for the scenery collection search: http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch

Here are the sketches:

Here is the drop in Grand Forks:

Scenic Artist – Andrew Geis and his designs for the Twin City Scenic Company

Over the years, I have tracked down a variety of scenic artists and their work, finding bits and pieces of information regarding their life and painting. During this time, my primary focus always remained on Thomas Gibbs Moses (1856-1934) and his Masonic installations.

Recently, I have branched off to look at some of Moses’ contemporaries. Andrew Geis will be my first subject as I have an immediate connection to him.

Many years back, I received multiple packages from a friend in Chicago. I have often become the depository of “things a local museum won’t take and I can’t store them anymore.” Each once is loving placed in a file or stored in my studio until I am able to find a better home – one that the future generations can access. This is one of the reasons that I have started a blog.  I want to get the information out sooner rather than later as it takes years to process a museum/archival collection ad digitize it. The blog also provides a searchable format for the information that I am sharing with the public.

So, back to my story…One of the Chicago boxes contained a portion of Geis’ design book.  My training introduced me to this type of source book as a “painter’s morgue.”  This term was introduced to me by my Professor Emeritus C. Lance Brockman at the University of Minnesota. In short, it is a source book for painters and designers with a variety of images to reference when drawing and painting.

Looking at Geis’ imagery with “older eyes” (and a tad more experience) I was able to pair up some of Geis’ sources with Masonic stage compositions.  This excited me and I immediately went to my “Andrew Geis” file.  Unfortunately, it only had four images of his design, currently held at the University of Minnesota Performing Arts archives.  I contacted my friend in Chicago to see if he had any idea about Geis’ background.  He recalled seeing the name in the 1927 Scenic Artists’ Ball program.  Bingo.

I finally stumbled across a single census entry from 1920.  Here is what I know to date about Geis.  Both of his parents were born in Germany, emigrating the the United States before Andrew was born.  Andrew is born in 1888 and eventually marries his wife Elizabeth (b. 1891).  They lived in Chicago’s 34 Ward at 3906 West 19th Street in Chicago, Cook County. His profession was listed as scenic artist for the art industry.  Both Geis and his wife are listed in the 1927 program as helping with the event.

The Scenery Collection renderings also his union affiliation: United Scenic Artists Local 350-2021.  Again, here is the link to the online collection – http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch.  You can find his rendering by typing in “Geis” in the Keyword option and hitting the “search” button.

Today, I will start with sharing his four rendering of interiors that were created for the Twin Cities Scenic Co.