SLAC. So what are you working on? What’s your current focus?

LU. I’m about to attach a sink to a wall – I was going to say I’m going to build a cabinet for a sink, but the cabinet is going to be on the back side of the wall, and the sink is just going to be hanging as if it’s just hanging on the wall, and then I’m going to plumb it so it’s practical. That’s my present focus

SLAC. So, prior to plumbing a sink hanging from an imaginary wall –

LU. The wall isn’t imaginary, but it is a soft flat, so I have to build framing behind it. I

SLAC. What are the other challenges in recreating Rothko’s studio?

LU. To me, the fact that it’s Rothko’s studio doesn’t pose a challenge, it’s just another set, if you know what I mean.

SLAC. Are you still working on Dottie’s set?

LU. No, Dottie’s done.   We completed that before moving up. Josh is doing a little bit of welding. This has not been a terribly challenging set – probably the most challenging thing is the platform over the door.

MELANIE BORGENICHT. (laughing) We’re all just conditioned, like drones.

“Now you’re going to build this.”

(in drone mode) “Okay, whatever you say…”

LU. Actually, the most challenging thing on the set for me is the sink.  

SLAC. The plumbing or the construction or…?

LU. I have to create a structure behind something that is absolutely not structural to hold something very heavy on the opposite side of the non-structural thing. Then I have to plumb from the paint sink upstairs hopefully through the wall so it’s not going through the door that they have to use, because there’s a practical slam in that door. So I’m going to go through the wall and through the false wall and then plumb it down again through the false wall into a bucket.

SLAC. Perfect. How did you all doing production design work – or production builds?

LU. We’re not production design, we’re just building –

SLAC. So what do you consider yourself? A lot of your skills are in demand outside of theatre –

LU. I’m a lot of things honestly.   Primarily, I consider myself a carpenter.

SLAC. How did you end up in theatre?

LU. I fell into theatre. You won’t want to put this in [the blog] – I don’t care it you do, but you probably won’t want to. I had gone through a really bad breakup, and I was going through major depression, and a friend of mine to try to help me out – who’s not in theatre – was working on a play as a fundraiser for the Pride Center (then the Stonewall Center) – and she said, “I need somebody to run lights for a couple of days. Come on and do it.” I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did it, and I had so much fun that I kept going back every day and just helping the actors with their props and things. One of them said, “You would be a good Stage Manager. I’m going to get you a Stage Manager job.” And that’s how it happened.

MELANIE. Everybody falls into it.

LU. Some people choose it.

MELANIE. Yeah, that’s true. With their theatre degrees – and all their worthless schooling… (laughter)

LU. They are the ones that usually don’t make a living at it, though…

SLAC. (to JOSIE) How about you?

JOSIE FIFE. I have always been an artist; I always wanted to be an artist, my whole life.   I got a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Utah in ’91. And then – my brother and sister worked in the film industry – and at that time, there was Touched by an Angel, Promised Land, all these movies of the week and features coming through. My brother said, “You’re too smart to get into this business. Please don’t get into this business.

LU. Your brilliant brother –

JOSIE. I got a job, and if you show up every day and don’t screw up, you keep working. And then, twenty years later, here I am – umemployed most of the time. (laughter) But I am still painting. I have a show coming up in Seattle – I think in February – some paintings in Montana, and some at the Old Flamingo in Salt Lake.

SLAC. Very cool.

LU. Here’s an interesting tie for me to SLAC. After I’d been stage managing for a couple of years, I quit my day job and decided to try and make a living of it. (Which you can’t do in Salt Lake.) I was working with Joe Borgenicht running lights down at Green Street for VOYEUR, where I met Nancy [Borgenicht].   And Nancy said, “You have the attitude for film.” (laughter) One of her screenplays, The Goodbye Bird, had been produced by Don Schain. She wrote me an introduction letter; I went in for an interview, worked on his next film, and it’s been eighteen years. So there’s a SLAC tie!

SLAC. Anything else that’s curious or next on the slate?

MELANIE. The pulley system install. That’s how Rothko rigged all of his work – the theory is he would pulley up these giant canvases and then look at them as if they were on the gallery wall. Seeing what they would look like on a plain white wall. I’m sure he added to them after that – which is exactly what we’re going to do.

LU. He pulleyed them up so he didn’t have to mount them to look at them, and could bring them back down.

MELANIE. I don’t quite understand his traveling canvas rig – my understanding is that it was his easel.

LU. Yes, a giant easel on wheels. Rothko would hook his canvas on the pulley and raise it into place. So he could either look at it or work on it.

SLAC. What were the dimensions of his real studio?

LU. It’s huge in the pictures – warehouse huge.

MELANIE.   His paintings were much larger than the 6’x6’ canvases we’re creating, too, but you definitely get a sense of the scale. It’s great, too, that Keven [Myhre, RED Designer and Director] tied in parts of the theatre. It takes you into Rothko’s world a little bit more.

SLAC. Could you describe how he’s doing that even more?

MELANIE. When you walk into the theatre, you walk under an overhead loft platform. That’s your first introduction into the space. When you look straight across from the door, the existing wall and window of the theatre are exposed, and we’ve painted the wall brick.

LU. You rarely see an open window in a theatre. That’s potentially an upcoming challenge, actually – we might need to black out the exterior window to control the light. He wants to avoid that; it’s a question for the Lighting Designer.

MELANIE. We don’t usually use the whole space. It’s usually boxed in to create one little scene.

LU. Well, and in this case, you’re seeing a portion of the grid onstage; you’re seeing the back walls, the joist work…

MELANIE. We’re hanging newer lighting in the rigging, so it’s really the whole space that’s being used as his studio.

SLAC. That’s exciting.

MELANIE. It is really interesting – there’s no division between the playing space and the audience. Usually there’s some division, whether it’s a line on the floor or the walls being built around or…

LU. Or the black walls falling away visually.

MELANIE. In RED, as soon as you hit the door, you’re in it.

LU. The whole space is incorporated. It’s very vast from what I’ve seen here before.

MELANIE. You’ll see…I think play, the visuals of the set, and the paintings are going to push people to go research more about Rothko.

SLAC. Oh good!

MELANIE. It would me.

LU. I agree.

MELANIE. I mean we’re all here and artsy and all that, so maybe we would just do it because that’s who we are, but I think people are going to be interested.

To Mark Rothko ~

The Tony Award-Winning RED plays Wednesday-Saturday @ 7:30 pm, Sundays @ 1 pm & 6 pm. Tickets available by calling the SLAC Box Office at 801.363.7522 or online at www.saltlakeactingcompany.org.