THOMAS K FAGERHOLM
Technical Director
Production Manager
The Foreigner
Utah Shakespeare Festival 2018
Director: Vincent J. Cardinal
Scene Design: Jason Lajka
Lighting Design: William C. Kirkham
Costume Design: David Kay Mickelsen
Technical Director: Thomas K Fagerholm
Assistant Technical Director: Robert Anderson
Realizing the Designer's Intent
Set Design by Jason Lajka, known for his film work as Set Designer for Coraline and concept model work on ParaNorman.
White model by Jason Lajka
Photo: Jason Lajka
Photo: Karl Hugh
In this photo we see Ellard, the son of the lodge owner, teaching Charlie to say fork.
For the 2018 Utah Shakespeare Festival summer season, two shows played in repertory on the Randall Theater stage: The Foreigner and Big River. The sets changed over in about one and a half hours with just 6 crew members. The fact that the main playing space for The Foreigner was elevated 8 inches created another scenic challenge. Since the set needed to changeover in such a short time, the set was broken into two main wagons seamed along the upstage side of the fireplace and between boards in the floor. This made the seams disappear from the view of the audience.
Installation of the stage right and center walls.
The walls of this set were constructed from one inch box steel with a 6 inch depth. The added depth helped stabilize the walls on the platforms. Return walls and escape units acted as braces. The fireplace was also engineered to have added depth to support the high peaks of the stage left wall.
Photo: Jason Lajka
Walls and platforms assembled with temporary railings started.
Photo: Thomas Fagerholm
Photo: Thomas Fagerholm
Assembly of 40 foot wide tree structure. This unit was engineered as five units that were assembled in the space.
Paperwork
Excel Document used to track priority and progress for each scenic unit.
The Master List Excel document also tracked daily carpenter assignments. This was something new to USF that I brought from my experience at Glimmerglass Festival.
Bid Summary
Bidding labor and materials in the pre-season in a major responsibility for the technical director at USF.
The main page at left gives a summary breakdown of the budget and labor expenses overall and for each unit
At the end of the season we reconcile all materials and expenditures to check how close our estimates were. On The Foreigner, we were under materials budget and very close to our labor estimates.
Drafting Package
