Backstage at the Academy
Huzzah! The Academy of Music is having an open house tomorrow. Apparently they’re going to let people wander around the set of Porgy and Bess. (Note to self: I really need a digital camera.) If there’s time to go, I’ll post about it.
Later: The open house was indeed fun, though I was in something of a hurry on
account of piled-up homework awaiting me. The highlights, for me, were
walking all around the Porgy and Bess set (we couldn’t climb up to
the second level, but it was fabulous to be able to stand in the middle
of it and peer out into the auditorium) and sitting down in the
orchestra pit. Also, listening to the costume director tell hilarious stories about the politics of
assigning dressing rooms,
the engineering challenge that is corset-making, and his quest for hockey-grade knee protectors for the tenor singing Porgy. I also peeked into one of the proscenium
boxes, and I will never envy the very rich again, because the boxes get a far more obstructed view of the stage than I did from way up in the Amphitheatre
section when I saw Cenerentola. They’re optimally positioned to be seen
by everyone else, though, which I suppose is the point.
Oh, and it turns out that they filmed the opera sequence in The Age of Innocence inside the Academy of Music! Well, speaking of rich people seeing and being seen…
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