The first two rows at the Ogunquit Playhouse are now a splash zone.

The theater is presenting “Singin’ in the Rain,” the musical based on the 1952 movie starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. And you can’t sing in the rain without getting wet.

To recreate the film’s most iconic musical number on stage, the crew had to figure out how to make it pour inside the Playhouse eight times a week.

“It’s truly not that complicated,” said Geof Dolan, the humble technical director and scenic coordinator at the Ogunquit Playhouse.

It only involves strategically placed sprinklers and a 32-foot-wide set with wheels and a built-in drain. The water can’t be too cold for the actors. The floor can’t be too slippery. The scene uses about 300 gallons of water.

“It’s a little bit of knowledge,” Dolan admitted.

Knowledge that he has. While “Singin’ in the Rain” goes behind the scenes in Hollywood as silent film stars transitioned to talkies, behind the scenes in Ogunquit is Dolan, who has worked at the Playhouse for 17 seasons. He is one of four full-time employees in the shop that handles carpentry, paint and props. Their seasonal crew grows to 13 people. Some shows arrive for their tour stop in Ogunquit with a tractor-trailer full of set pieces and props. But Dolan and his crew build the rest, including a huge set for “Singin’ in the Rain.”

“This is one of the biggest ones we’ve taken on in a really long time,” he said.

MAKING IT RAIN

Dolan got into this field in a roundabout way. His parents were actors and directors, and he grew up around theater. But his last performance was in junior high, and he was more into sports than the stage.

“Lost in my 20s, I remembered theater,” he said.

He got a job as a carpenter at the Sierra Repertory Theatre in California. For a few years, he split the seasons between Maine and Florida. Now, he works full time at the Playhouse. The scene shop, located on a back road in Wells, builds sets for theaters across the region in the off-season.

To make it rain inside the Ogunquit Playhouse, Dolan called a good friend. Derek Jones lives in New York and is currently the head electrician for “Back to the Future: The Musical” on Broadway. He started working at the Playhouse in 2008 when he was in college, and he spent five seasons there as the head electrician. Now, he is its technical consultant and on call for questions related to production. For “Singin’ in the Rain,” he worked with Dolan and scenic designer Andy Walmsley to create the rain effect. (He is also advising the crew on video and projection for the movie scenes.)

“My two main concerns in designing the system are the temperature of the water and the volume required,” he wrote in an email. “We estimate that we will use about 300 gallons of water for the almost seven minutes that it rains onstage – a rate much higher than most garden hoses. To meet those requirements, I designed a system to store and heat over 300 gallons of water as well as deliver it fast enough to achieve a realistic look. Due to union rules, the water must be at least 99 degrees Fahrenheit. Being married to a former actress, I know how important it is to create the best environment to allow the performers to shine.”

He set up a pump to move water from the heated storage tank to the pipes that hang above the stage. The pipes are equipped with sprinkler heads that point up, so the water shoots toward the ceiling and then rains down. A stagehand controls the pump during the scene.

“Add a little magic from lighting designer Rich Latta, and the whole effect will be brought to life,” said Jones. “While our rain may not quite equal that of a coastal Maine midsummer downpour, Max Clayton and the other talented performers will make sure it looks that way!”

(“Singin’ in the Rain” lore has it that the set designers for the original movie added milk to the water while filming the titular number, so the raindrops would show up on camera. “It’s not true,” Stanley Donen, who directed and choreographed the movie with Kelly, told the Director’s Guild of America in 2009. “You have to put the light behind the rain so that the raindrops show. If you put the light in front of the rain, with no light behind it, the rain disappears.”)

Getting the water on stage is one problem. Getting it off stage is another. While Jones engineered the pipes and pumps in New York, Dolan and his crew were finishing the set. They had six to seven weeks to complete their work, and in early June, they were rapidly approaching their deadline. At the scene shop, one team was building a platform called a “rain deck,” which will roll into place for this scene. The deck is slightly graded so the raindrops trickle naturally toward a center drain and a hidden catch basin, where another pump will remove the water.

The Playhouse presented “Singin’ in the Rain” once before, in 2009. They built a similar system then, but it was a little leaky. When the show wrapped, Dolan had to replace sections of the stage floor because of water damage. It happens, he said. The title song is right at the end of the first act, timed nicely so the crew has the opportunity to towel off any damp spots left behind when the rain deck rolls away.

ANOTHER OPENING

For Dolan, the rain deck itself wasn’t the most complicated part of this set. At the scene shop, another team was painting the streetscape background for this scene. The design was in forced perspective, which uses an optical illusion to create the appearance of distance and depth on a Los Angeles street. (The “Hollywoodland” sign in the faraway hills will only stand 3 1/2 feet tall.) The crew cut the precise angles on a CNC machine and will eventually mount the streetscape on the back of the rolling deck.

All the pieces had to come together in the four days before the first show, which was Thursday. The changeover from one production to the next is quick and demanding. For three or four days, the crew works from midnight to noon to set up the sets, and the actors rehearse in the afternoons.

Max Clayton, 31, played “Singin’ in the Rain” lead Don Lockwood during his senior year at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He’s built a career on Broadway since then and was most recently Hugh Jackman’s standby in “The Music Man.” Now, he’ll play Gene Kelly’s character again in his Ogunquit Playhouse debut. The company will “wow everybody,” he said.

“Don Lockwood is a song-and-dance man’s dream,” he said. “This show in general is musical theater heaven.”

Clayton said he hasn’t been in a show that required a rain system since that college production, but the Playhouse has done everything to make sure he can perform safely. He’ll have the appropriate shoes for the wet surface, and the deck will be coated with rubberized paint so he won’t slip.

“Such thought goes into all of these decisions to make a show like this run smoothly, and I just feel so taken care of and supported by Ogunquit Playhouse,” he said.

Robin Fowler, box office manager, said “Singin’ in the Rain” has been “a really big seller.”

“People are really looking forward to it,” he said. “Not only due to its name recognition, but people are excited to see how we pull it off and what the translation from film to stage is going to look like.”

They’ve been warning those patrons who buy tickets in the first two rows about the splash zone, and most have opted to accept the risk. Until the rain system was installed and tested, no one really knew how much splash there would actually be. But if you’re seated there, don’t worry.

You’ll get a poncho with your ticket.

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

Live Nation says customers will no longer see surprise ticket fees

Next »

Juneteenth show will explore what it’s like growing up Black in Maine