Wednesday night i was cleaning the house and packing to come back to kansas. GHP called and said the opera in wichita needed help painting sets and wanted to know how soon i'd be back in kansas.
I packed everything as quickly as I could and left norman at 9:45 p.m. I got back to Wichita at 12:30 and headed to the concert hall at 10 a.m. thursday morning. GHP took me into the room where they were working on the set and showed me a piece of crap set--three panels with arches cut into them with styrofoam "stones" glued around the arches and painted red and white. There were also "stone columns"... cardboard pipes cut in half. The set designer was completely incompetent AND left town.
This stuff should have all been done weeks ago. The set had to be moved onto stage TODAY, and nothing was finished. My job was to make it not look like crap. Keep in mind, my only painting experience is the stuff you guys have seen. I work on a canvas about 20x24" and usually have a month to do it (and get paid for it). This was a set 30' wide and 8' tall.
I grabbed some brushes and smeared some paint on the columns all willy-nilly and then moved on to salvaging the rest of the set. I fixed the stones around the arches and then took a risk... the other guys working in the room stopped what they were doing and stared as I approached the tan wall with a 3" paintbrush full of dark brown paint. I attacked the wall and made some freaky jagged lines. Then I grabbed some light tan and highlighed some stuff and one of the guys, all shocked, says "that might actually work".
I took a break, went to lunch with GHP, and when I got back the guy in charge of the opera was so impressed he declared me "Master Scenic Artist" and decided I was in charge of all the painting and set work.
A little while later they showed me the REST of the set... three more pieces and a ****load of rocks and they started planning how i needed to extend the pieces taller and make them all match and look like rocks on a beach and on and on. and I'm thinking "oh ****, what did I just get myself into?"
So yeah, that's just the start of it. I guess the summary is that I just painted an entire opera set (minus backdrops and some props/rocks) in two days. And i'm supposed to be there all through the production next weekend AND the guy wants to hire me for the summer. I'm not sure yet if i'm willing to deal with them all summer.