65 Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh dir Anita Deely for Strawdog Theatre, In the summer of 2000, I was invited to join Strawdog theatre company and I said yes. Because I had a lot of friends in Strawdog. And after I said yes, I went to all of them and said “Hey! So excited to work with you!” and they all said “I just went on leave.” So Julie Stanton was the my other “class” mate and we brought the total roster up to 12 active ensemble members, most of whom I did not know. Luckily it would all turn out well. One of my first official ensemble tasks was being the Tech Director for Disco Pigs. Michelle Caplan was the set designer and we knew each other from my Steppenwolf carpentry days, and she really wanted a dance floor that lit up - and even though I was far from the best carpenter in the world, I said “I’ll make that happen.” Does Strawdog have a table saw? Yes. Cool. Go to Home Depot, buy the lumber, they ask you need any of that cut down? Nope, got a table saw. Got to the theatre loaded all the lumber up the stairs got to the table saw, and one of those ensemble members who just went on leave and moved back to Texas had taken it apart. So now I had to cut down 200 feet of 12x to 9x by hand. I was also under considerable time constraints because they had rented the space out until three days before tech began. So I lived at the theatre for three days, working 18 hour days and sleeping in the green room. But it got done. And it worked! I also built it as one giant piece so it was impossible to get out the door so it lived there for several years. #retrospective #discopigs #endawalsh #anitadeely #michellecaplan #Tablesaw #olemusty #dancefloor #letsgodisco (at Chicago-n Broadway) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6WJhBqp6xq/?igshid=o51gx85puy17
