Carpentry team for Massachusetts theater brings stories to life with their set designs
Inside a warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts , a group of talented carpenters are making theater magic. From scratch, they build the incredible sets you see on stage in all of American Repertory Theater's productions.
Technical direction consultant Chris Swetcky leads the team that uses wood, metal, paint and cloth to make stories come alive.
"Make the impossible possible"
"Figuring out how to make the impossible possible is kind of what we do," said Swetcky. And the work happens quickly. "The average time from the time we get designs to the time this thing has to load in is six weeks or less."
When WBZ-TV visited, the artists were working on the sets for the classic Greek tale, "The Odyssey."
"It's an Odyssey with a twist. So there's a lot of modern elements," said Swetcky.
From turning solid chunks of wood into a ship's mast, to creating the devices that can make the sails billow on stage, the team does it all. While everyone who works at the scene shop has the official title of "carpenter", carpentry is just one of the many things they do.
"What's kind of interesting is as a carpenter for a theater, you have to be involved in pretty much everything. You have to know a little bit about everything to do your job. And that's what makes it a lot of fun is that every day we do something different," said Swetcky.
Over the past few years, the team has made it rain on stage, installed hydraulics, fabricated plastics, and created wood and metal scenery.
"We are a full-service metal shop and we can pretty much do anything that you can imagine," said Swetcky. "We'll take a designer's drawing, if they want a crazy spiral staircase, they want some crazy helical drop. we'll figure out how to make it happen."
Sets are built to last
And what the team makes is built to last.
"We wouldn't put in a wood floor that you would buy at Home Depot," said Swetcky. "We'd have to custom build our wood floor, finish it, specially, because after the 15th performance, it's going to get destroyed if we don't make it extra strong. So everything we build has to be industrial. Industrial strength because rigors of production are just insane."
The carpentry team comes from every walk of life, from those who used to frame houses to people who used to install garage doors.
"It's a lot of interesting skill sets. They come in, they find a passion for this. And I think that's the one thing you'll find in the scene shop is all these people are all really invested in what they do. They want to do good work and they do, and you can see it. It shows with the sets and what comes on stage.... if you like doing something different every day, if you like engineering stuff, even without being an engineer, theater is definitely the place for you," said Swetcky.
You can see the team's work on stage at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. "The Odyssey" runs through March 16.
