East High Senior Sets Scene for 'Cyrano' in a Big Way

Deep in the farthest subterranean reaches of , Zora Martin dances.

Her steps are light, subtle and guided not only by the music echoing in this catacomb but by a vision emerging at her feet, a vision she not only sees in her mind’s eye but feels with her toes.

She doesn’t dance alone. Her partner is a long-handled paint roller, sometimes, or a 4-foot bamboo pole with its end split to hold a brush or a stick of charcoal.

Zora dances to create the largest painted scenic drop set ever deployed by the Tosa East Players. It is 14 feet by 30 feet – 420 square feet if you’re keeping track – to grace the stage for East’s fall production of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which opens Friday.

A hand-painted scene of that size would look impressive on the full proscenium stage of the auditorium. But “Cyrano” will be produced in a “black box” setting, with the back of the set to the empty  auditorium and the audience seated in what is usually the back of the stage – practically within reach of the players.

In that intimacy, Zora’s mural will look immense, and every inch of detail will show. Zora, a senior, has been entrusted with putting that audience inside that scene.

Summer in the city

Kids love to dance, but that isn’t why Zora moves while she paints.

“It’s imperative,” she says. “You have to move, or it isn’t natural.”

She demonstrates. She stands still and rolls out a few strokes with a roller cut to create a leaf pattern. It looks like bad flocked wallpaper. Then she dances, and the leaves come to life, layering, spraying, reaching for sunlight.

Zora learned her technique under Rachel Keebler at her Cobalt Studios’ summer scenic design program in New York. Keebler designs and produces sets for Broadway productions, and she is picky about whom she chooses to train.

Zora has attended the six-week program twice, first after her sophomore year and again this summer. In each case, she was the youngest person accepted.

“It was the first thing we learned,” Zora said of her dancing technique. “Rachel said, ‘You have to move, you have to dance.’”

Rummaging through history

The inspiration for the pastoral scene Zora has painted for “Cyrano” came, of course, from the director, Tom Thaney. He did not go to a book of classic scene design to find it.

“Mr. Thaney went to a garage sale and brought back three paintings he wanted to render,” Zora says. “I chose this one as my main influence.”

Thaney had it in his head that the scene could be more than an image – also an homage.

“The play, ‘Cyrano,’ is set in France in 1640,” Thaney said. “At that time, they would hold plays on tennis courts. They would hang a painted fabric scene across the court, and it would not be flat and static – it would have the effect of being cloth, somewhat soft and moving.”

"It will have a tapestry feel," Zora said. "When it's finished it will get a sepia wash over everything."

Asking a high school student to recreate a very large 17th Century set piece for a modern theater audience is a typically bold move for Thaney, but one in which he seems to have perfect confidence.

“Having skills like Zora’s to draw on is such an opportunity,” Thaney said, “for her and for all of us.”

Room to work

Putting her talents to the test involved more than just giving her a huge piece of muslin and some buckets of paint. They needed a lot of space, because such large scenes have to be laid out flat.

East Principal Nick Hughes did not even know the big room behind the costume racks even existed, Thaney said. But Hughes enthusiastically supported the idea, and a water line was run into the space for mixing paint and cleaning up.

Thaney had to buy about 500 square feet of high-grade plywood to form a smooth surface for Zora and her crew to work on, plus a whole lot of kraft paper to cover it.

Zora enlisted and trained three other student stage artists to help her: Ian Reid, Meghan Hoose and Courtney Parbs.

On the walls hang a number of project pieces Zora painted at Cobalt Studios, for inspiration and illustration of the effects she wants the crew to achieve. On one of her smaller pieces alone, she ticks off an even dozen different painting techniques applied to the muslin to give the scene depth.

 Some pieces focus just on wood grain – either fresh or aged. Some render a marble cornice or pediment, as in an Italian palace.

A scene of Stonehenge and another of a castle on a distant hill change with lighting. When lit from the front, you see a daytime scene; when lit from the rear, sunset glows and a moon rises over Stonehenge, while in the castle, warm light shines from the windows.

Ambitious aspirations

With all her training and experience, it would seem that Zora’s ticket to Broadway was written. She has other plans.

“I’ve applied to Stanford, Pomona, Scripps and the University of Chicago,” Zora says. “I’m planning on a triple major in psychology, linguistics and British literature.

“It won’t be as hard as it might sound – no harder than a double major, really – because the core studies for all three are much the same.

“I’ll also be taking my pre-med.”

Planning to be both a college professor and a family doctor, Zora has already worked with Doctors Without Walls, an aid organization that brings health care to the homeless.

“We set up a MASH unit,” she says matter-of-factly.

Zora can’t really say at the moment how all of her stagecraft experience will come to play in her future, but it doesn’t seem to matter now. It’s something unique that she’s thrown herself into, an urgent and memorable part of her life that also let her live inside another world she loves.

“Language is so important to me,” she says. “I’m a Shakespeare-o-phile. I spent months analyzing “Hamlet.” In the end I did an independent studies project with a very unmemorable name: ‘Symbols and Psychology in Author-Reader Communications.’”

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Cyrano de Bergerac

The Tosa East Players will perform “Cyrano de Bergerac,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday; and at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 18 and 19, at East High School, 7500 Milwaukee Ave.

Director Tom Thaney's synopsis of the play:

"Amidst the majesty of 17th century France, gallant swordsman and lonely poet Cyrano admires the beautiful Roxanne from afar—hiding behind an excessively long nose. Cyrano feels hecould never be worthy of such an exquisite woman, let alone tell her how he feels. As fate would have it, Cyrano finds an opportunity to express himself by writing love poems to her on behalf of his friend Christian, an attractive young cadet who also longs for Roxanne. With each soul-stirring letter that builds a romance Cyrano will never know, he continues to dream – will Roxanne ever learn the truth behind the deep-felt words or will it forever remain a secret of her heart?"

The production will be a black box venue with the audience sitting on the theater stage, actors and actresses will wear lavish period costumes designed by student Hailey Rakowiecke, and a stage combat artist will train the Musketeers in dueling skills.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for senior citizens, $10 for senior citizens with Gold Pass and for students, $8 for students with ID pass, and $6 children ages 12 and younger.

To purchase tickets, go to www.seatyourself.biz or call (414) 773-2110.