My Fair Lady

A musical adaptation of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Music & Lyrics by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner

Produced: August, 1985
West Hartford Summer Arts Festival
Director:Haig Shahverdian
Scenery: Arthur Dirks
Facility:Hall High School Auditorium
Notes:

The first time I designed this show in a traditional Edwardian style. For this very wide stage there was lots of scenery, all on wagons. Higgins' study entirely wagonned up and down stage and was only about 10 feet deep. Other scenes flew or slipped in, some of them like the ballroom divided to each side. I did a lot with wings opening off wagons. The show had a painted shaped grand teaser.

We had several wonderful gramophones from a collector friend who loaned them under the condition that I never tell anyone where I got them. My original design for the ballroom staircase was even more elaborate. I designed the Ascot scene in blues. I didn't learn until later that it is ALWAYS white. I had seen the film once but had never seen the musical.

It was ambitious and time was tight. The shapes were there but the painting wasn't all it should have been. We were painting styrofoam books on the study balcony as the house was entering. We repeated the show in 1991, but with a different design.