Notes from the Archives of Peter Zavon: Iolanthe '68

Carryover from Yeoman '68 in the cast was light. Only five returned. Apparently there will always be a good deal of attrition over the summer, even among non-seniors. While Richard Traubner left Boston, Seth Schweitzer returned and became our "founder-in-residence." Mike Cambell also returned, to the accompaniment of much fanfare from Sully Schlegel. Mrs. Edmonds again directed. It is a sad commentary on the conflict between her and much of the rest of the organization that there had been a concerted effort to find another director. However, the Executive Committee came to feel that she was just the type of person to direct an opera such as Iolanthe. Unfortunately, during the production, friction between Mrs. Edmonds and the cast and crew increased. John Manion resigned all his connections with the Savoyards because of what he considered her interference with his duties. Marc Jablon decided that if she directed another show he would go over to the MIT G&S Society. (He had already performed in MIT's Ruddygore while he was in Yeoman '68.) Marc Kelberman nearly resigned more than once because of what he considered her interference and lack of knowledge in the lighting department. Sully Schlegel, no doubt influenced by her summer as part of the Classical Musical Society (summer metamorphosis of MIT G&S) resigned from the chorus to join the chorus of MIT's Pinafore. Barbara Jones had been cast as the Fairy Queen. When her voice teacher would not let her sing the part, Constance (Connie) Miller, then directing MIT's Pinafore took the part. This is the beginning of what may be called the BU-MIT G&S Complex. Leo Emord originally had the position of Assistant to the Director. Due to over-work, he resigned that position and Peter Zavon took it. Later that semester, Leo dropped out of school. Iolanthe was the first production since the revival to include a set change. The sets were originally designed by Jeff Ullman. However, the designs were obscure and, it was felt, inappropriate on some points, so some of the staff reworked them to a considerable extent. The first act was a pastoral scene; the second a view of Parliament, and a number of problems were encountered with the designs. These included the color of the backdrop and how to change it between acts, and how to depict trees in the first act. The major difficulty was with the second act arches. The original plans had them looking like a Roman aqueduct rather than British architecture. In the end, the trees were made of upsomboard supported on a wooden frame. The backdrop was pink and was not changed between acts since it was almost completely hidden by trees during the first act. The arches were redesigned as flat set pieces and constructed in folding sections for easier handling. Changing the set involved moving many top-heavy, breakable objects and was thus very difficult, even though, by comparison with the sets of later years, this one was small and on a small stage. Set changes were made more difficult by the fact that the stage area in Theatre 12 had no back stage and virtually no wings. The set had to be moved into, and stored in, the main corridor which was, by comparison with the set pieces, very narrow. Nevertheless, by closing night the set change was accomplished in five minutes - an astonishing feat.

Framingham Tour: After the Sunday matinee, the set was struck and loaded into a 24-foot U-Haul truck for transport to Framingham. This operation was performed by the cast, largely unsupervised. The cast apparently felt that speed was essential. The end result was that the loading got out of hand and the set was piled into the truck haphazardly. Upon arriving in Framingham, it was discovered that, due to the faulty loading, much of the ACT II set was broken. Most of the broken set pieces were upsomboard arches mounted on 1x3 frames. We were not prepared for a major repair job as we had not brought extra wood, or even nails. However, after some hours, the arches were satisfactorily repaired and we turned to the problem of setting up. Eventually, the ACT I trees were attached to horizontal lighting bars by stray pieces of wire. We planned to remove them completely between acts. Much of the ACT II set was junked in that we used only two sections of arches, and that parallel to the footlights. We planned to set it up using nails and wire between acts. The day of the performance, Marc Kelberman was still struggling to set up the lights we had brought. Twenty minutes before curtain time, he was finishing the aiming of the lights, but had not put gels in yet. At this point, he was called away to fix the curtain because the fuse had blown again. Mrs. Edmonds, anxious to open the house, had his ladder removed, and, when he returned, would not permit him to set it up again and finish with the lights. Apparently she was interested only in luminosity, not wave length, and felt it was sufficient to go on with white spots and half gelled strip lights. Kelberman, of course, felt differently and became so disgusted that he refused to do anything more that night. Under the circumstances, all that could be done was to turn up the white spots at the beginning of an act and turn them down at the end. Despite all this, the performance itself was quite acceptable.

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