IT'S ELECTRIC FINALLY OPENS TONIGHT!

That's right, IT'S ELECTRIC finally opens tonight. After being snowed out, and numerous other snags and barbs we are finally getting our robots out of the lab and on to the dance floor of the Electric Maid! Come on by 7pm-11pm TONIGHT!

This week has seen lots of great progress for Yuri's Night...I finished a floor plan of the Capitol Skyline Hotel (yes, we can fit 200 people into the Hall of States, thank you) and we spend last weekend shooting a promotional YouTube video...Which will hopefully premiere tomorrow night when I, and perennial Miss Universe contestant, Southern Hemisphere, will be interviewed on the Larz from Marz show...

Yet another year goes by without a clear Lucite trophy from the WATCH Awards (that's 7 nominations and no wins for those of you counting)... We'll get 'em next year!

Oh, did I mention that High Fidelity will be extending their run....at the Warehouse?! Its true, check out the screenshot from their website:


So, if you wanted a second chance to see this great, Helen Hayes Recommended show, here it is!

I also spent my day off this week driving to and from Lyndhurst NJ in order to get a great deal on Gridwall. What is gridwall you may ask? You've seen it before, its a steel grid mesh that comes in 2 foot wide and 7 foot tall sections used by craft fair artists everywhere to hold up their art for display...so now, the artists of Yuri's Night can be secure in the idea that their work will not be sitting on the ground during the show!

And of course, last but not least, I finished painting the drop for Illuminopolis:

Illuminopolis backdrop
Acrylic on Black Velour, 12'x10'

44 Days left in the Yuri's Night Countdown...

T-Minus 44 Days Until Yuri's Night

We have had another breakneck week with Yuri's Night...but I wont bore you with details...I'll wait until March 10th for that (one month to go by then)...The only thing I will say is that you better get your tickets now because we are likely to sell out (plus you will save $ if you don't try to buy them at the door...) Click on the Yuri Logo above to get linked to the party website

High Fidelity has been open for a week, and the reviews are good! Check out DC Theatre Scene's review of High Fidelity or the fact that Metro Weekly Calls my set "...Incredibly Clever..." Scenery Appreciation Night is still set for this Saturday 2/27...but I think that the show might be sold out!

We completed the Producer's "Little Old Lady Land" drop this week...here are some tease shots from the completed drop (the producer said that I shouldn't post the finished product on my blog...so by giving you a peek I am being naughty)

Roosevelt smiles down on the old ladies...

...And it looks like Estelle McSherry is in for $50,000.00!

HIGH FIDELITY OPENS, YURI'S NIGHT and LITTLE OLD LADY LAND

Landless Theater Company opens their second show in the SEASON OF THE DAMNED, High Fidelity. If you are a frequent reader of BTT, you know that we like to present scenery appreciation nights for landless shows during the second week of the run...so, without further adieu, I would like to announce that:

Scenery Appreciation Night for High Fidelity will be on Saturday February 27th! (Type "Jared" in the vendini discount code box for your SAN discount!)

And, here is just a tease of the set design, for those of you who cant wait until next Saturday!
I guess its about time to institute the Countdown to Yuri's Night Clock again:

T-Minus 51 days until YURI'S NIGHT!

Tickets are now officially on sale at WWW.OUTOFTHISWORLDPARTY.COM

The other development this week was that I solidified the design for Producers "Little Old Lady Land" Drop:

Little Old Lady Land Drop Painters Elevation
Photoshop and Pencil

In fact we have started painting it already...we are painting over the "jukebox" from Bye Bye Birdie, which is causing some slight complications. The jukebox was a purple arch that went around the cut opening of the drop. Purple is a notorious color for bleeding through whatever you paint over it (and it is doing exactly that right now) so, my workaround is to make a "cheque rainbow"...The concept, for those of you who are not familiar with the show, is that Max Bialystock is sleeping with all of the little old ladies in NYC in order to get them to become investors in his show. So, naturally, the backdrop for the scene is of springtime in central park, except everything, much like the fabled tootsie roll disorder, looks like money!

Question of the week: should I post progress shots of the backdrops for the "Springtime for Hitler" scene, despite having large swastikas on them?

IT'S ELECTRIC! and REEFER SCENERY APPRECIATION NIGHT

I'm as excited as the jerk in the photo above that tonight is Scenery Appreciation Night for REEFER MADNESS! So, if you know what's good for ya, you'll come on down to tonight's closing weekend shows! You can get tickets at the door or from the Dominion Stage Website.

This weekend I will be gearing up to finalize the last two paintings I am creating for It's Electric. What's It's Electric, you ask? Here's the flyer:

Chris Griffin curates a Robo-Art Show featuring the works of local artists Michael Auger, Jared Davis, Todd Gardner and Steve Strawn. The opening reception is Saturday, February 6th from 7:00 - 11:00 PM. There will be 'botting poppers Gwo and Frequency and DJ Anne Dreud (yep, rhymes with Freud) will be spinning! Please come and boost your "arti"ificial intelligence!

The deets:
It's Electric! Opening Reception
Saturday, Feb. 6th 7:00 - 11:00 PM
The Electric Maid
268 Carroll St., N.W. (a short block from Takoma Metro)

I will give you loyal BTT readers a sneak preview of one of the three pieces in the show:

The Devil and the Broken Man
Acrylic on Canvas, 24"x20"

I don't know why blogger seems to make this image much darker than any other program does...so, you will just have to come see it with your naked eyes in order to get the full impact!

The build for High Fidelity has just started, and I have progress on a major piece of the scenery to share...Its a counter for the record store "Championship Vinyl" that figures prominently in the show.One of the good things about High Fidelity is that it is getting a lot of good buzz. We already have been getting previews from the likes of DCBroadwayWorld.com DC Broadway World previews High Fidelity

REEFER REVIEWED, HIGH FIDELITY AND PRODUCERS BEGIN

Its been a busy week, which has been made even more frantic due to the illness. I speak of the illness that gripped the cast and crew of Reefer Madness...which eventually caught up with yours truly (and currently running its course through KT!) and knocked him out for the better part of the three day weekend. But I'm all better now, and I have good reviews of Reefer to share with you. First you might check out this favorable review in the Gazette from Monday. But really, you should read the one in the Washington Post because it specifically mentions the scenery:

Jared Davis's scenic design makes economical use of the Lee Center (sic) stage with vertical flats festooned with comic book graphics and inventive, movable set pieces allowing rapid scene changes.

While it's not gushing, its an honor to be mentioned...even if they did get some of the facts wrong (its the Gunston Theater 1, not Lee Center...and I don't usually make my last name plural by adding a second "S" after the apostrophe...)

Anyhoo, you should start making your plans for next week's SCENERY APPRECIATION NIGHT for Reefer Madness on Friday January 29th. Get your tickets Here

We are leaps and bounds closer to announcing a venue for Yuri's Night...Fingers crossed!!! I will announce it as soon as we have confirmation (perhaps as early as Monday!)

The illness this week was not just me, KT and the cast of Reefer...it was also the Isuzu. I spent precious time getting the darn thing fixed (the headlights were not coming on at night and it was badly in need of new rotors) And the worst part about the whole thing is that they never really did anything to fix the lights...they started poking around and they magically started working!

I whipped up a logo for the upcoming Landless Show HIGH FIDELITY:

Yeah, its a bit cheesy and old school...but hey, so is the show! You can see the graphic in action on the Landless Website. I also made major headway on the set design for High Fidelity:It may not look like much right now, but trust me, this is going to be one rockin' show! I'll start building sometime next week, so you can expect more pictures soon.

The other leap forward this week was for Arlington Players production of Producers (which opens the week before Yuri's Night!) I started trying to unscramble the crazy set changes in that are called for in the script, and I began to make initial sketches...Here's a sketch of the office of Max Bialystok:

As you can see, this sketch represents only about a eighth of the show...in any other production this would be THE set...Anyway, expect way more of this show to pop up on BTT between now and April!

I almost forgot...this week the WATCH award nominations were announced and I was nominated TWICE! Overall The Arlington Players Follies was nominated for twelve WATCH awards:

Outstanding Set Design in a Musical: Jared Davis

Outstanding Set Painting in a Musical: Jared Davis

Outstanding Set Construction in a Musical: Bill Wisniewski

Outstanding Set Decoration and Set Dressing in a Musical:

Outstanding Costume Design in a Musical: Grant Kevin Lane

Outstanding Makeup Design in a Musical: Avery Burns

Outstanding Hair Design in a Musical: Bette Williams

Outstanding cameo in a musical: Kathleen McCormick as "Buddy's Blues Margie"

Outstanding Choreography: Christopher Dykton

Outstanding Music Direction: John-Michael d'Haviland

Outstanding Direction of a Musical: Christopher Dykton

Outstanding Musical: Follies - Arlington Players