The Ramses Twins – Egyptian Statues for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”

When our local children’s theater company announced a production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” this summer, I immediately began thinking about some fun projects I could do for the show. I’ve always wanted to do some larger-than-life sculpted figures, and this seemed like the perfect time to do that.

luxor-ramsesA big part of our Egypt set consisted of a large stair-step pyramid right in the middle of the stage. The plan was for Pharaoh to be lifted up to the top from  behind (on a scissor jack) and step forward onto the top of the pyramid. As I thought about dressing up the stage, I remembered photos of the Luxor Temple, with rows and rows of identical statues of Ramses II. Obviously, we couldn’t have a whole row of statues, but two of them flanking the pyramid sounded like a pretty cool idea. Add to that the painted Egyptian columns I was planning and I knew we’d have a beautiful set.

My requirements were straightforward. They needed to go up and down into the flies, so they couldn’t have much depth (less than 18 inches) and they couldn’t be very heavy. They also had to be big—I was hoping for ten feet high or more. They needed to be more or less identical and they had to have “bling,” since this was a Vegas-style version of Egypt.

Inspiration

I had trouble finding a good photo of the Luxor Ramses statues to use as a template. Instead, I found this very similar statue, which was pretty symmetrical except that it lacked lower legs. Also, I wanted the familiar “crossed arms” pose with the candy cane and the whip. Apparently this pose makes reference to Osiris, who (according to the Egyptian Book of the Dead) “seized the crook and the flail when … in the womb….” Sounds like a great guy.

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So yeah, I wanted that. Totes Egyptian.

Tools of the Trade

Materials for this project:

  • Template paper (on a roll)
  • Masking tape
  • 19/32″ OSB, two 4×8 sheets
  • Drywall screws
  • 2-inch construction Styrofoam
  • Wood glue (several large bottles)
  • Gold paint (base layer and top coat)
  • Acrylic paints (for details)
  • Gaffer tape (black and white)
  • 2 Wire coat hangers

Tools I used:

  • Laptop, projector
  • Pencil and Sharpie marker (for drawing and tracing template)
  • Jigsaw
  • Drill with Phillips bit
  • Serrated steak knife (for rough carving)
  • Small hand planer (for smoothing)
  • Shoe rasp (for detailed shaping)
  • Heat gun

We didn’t even have to buy any foam for this project. I had several full sheets (and some parts and scraps) still in storage from my Cave of Wonders project for “Aladdin” last year. So … yay. Big bang for even fewer bucks.

I know it sounds pretty low-tech, but I did all of the carving on this project with a steak knife that I pulled out of my camping bin on the morning I started building. The blade actually came out of the handle an hour into my first carving, so I “fixed” it with gaffer tape. So here’s a photo of my high-tech tools:

Tools of the Trade

Paper and Plywood

Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos of this first part of the process. But I’ll describe what I did.

When creating any design, one of the key elements is symmetry. This is almost impossible to achieve when you’re tracing a pattern for a design like this. The solution is to  only work on one side. That sounds counter-intuitive, but it really works.

First, I joined two long sections of my el-cheapo template paper. I buy roll ends from the local newspaper for just a couple of bucks each. They’re 22 inches wide, so I taped two strips together to make a 44-inch wide roll. Having the center line was perfect,  because it gave me a good reference for the exact middle of the paper.

I taped the paper to the wall and hooked my laptop up to a projector. I fiddled with the zoom on the image until I got it right in the middle of the sheet, at the right size for what I was hoping to do. I knew I was going to add to the height and scale of the statue by using a plinth (a traditional statue base). I didn’t bother creating a design for the plinth—that would come later.

As I mentioned, I combined two designs to make this work. Basically I just drew the outline for the first section, then projected the second image onto the chest (for the crossed arms) and adjusted until it fit. Once I had half of a design, I darkened the half-outline with a Sharpie pen, folded the design in half, and traced the other side to create a perfect mirror image. I filled in a few gaps and ended up with a completed design. Here’s what it looked like.

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You’ll notice that I ended up lengthening the shendyt, or wrap-around skirt, at the request of the director. Even though the Egypt in “Joseph” is kind of Vegas-ish, we’re still in Utah and this was going to be a “family show.” Modest is hottest, right?

After cutting out the final design, I lay it on top of a sheet of 19/32″ OSB (construction waferboard). I went with the slightly thinner stuff because I knew there wouldn’t be much weight. I laid out the plinth with a yardstick and cut the thing with a jigsaw. Since the final design was about ten and a half feet tall, I started the base at the bottom of the board and used the leftover pieces at the top for the head, screwing them together with drywall screws. The screws stuck out through the front but that wasn’t a biggie. The screw points were going to be covered up soon with foam.

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The photos above are the back of one of the statue cutouts. These photos were taken after the pieces were hung on the flies, but you can see the basic shape and how I cheaped out by using scrap lumber to piece together the tops of the heads. This allowed me to get each shape out of a single sheet of OSB.

Once I had one piece cut out, I plopped it onto a second sheet of OSB and traced the outline for its twin. So far, so good.

Layering the Foam

For  the statue bodies, I used 2-inch-thick construction foam. The foam comes with a plastic covering on one side and foil on the other, so I had to carefully peel that stuff off before using it. I knew I’d have to layer it thicker in some sections than others. This was actually a very good thing. Using wood glue, I put two full layers (4 inches) on the entire bodies. Then I cut out a “torso template” and put another layer from the arms up. I added a fourth layer to the face and one of the arms (to make it easier for them to look like they were crossed. This took some time, because I would have to apply the layer and wait at least a day for it to dry before rough-cutting the shape and gluing up the next layer. I don’t know if it was absolutely necessary, but I rested something flat on top of each layer and put a couple of chairs on top to press the layers together while the glue was drying.

I ended up tracing sub-templates to help me with the layers:

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Working in layers meant I could “pre-sculpt” certain areas by tracing sub-templates and cutting around the layers that needed to be built up. That meant, when I began the shaping process, I wasn’t beginning with just a great big block of foam. The basic shapes were already there … I just had to refine them.

At this point we began calling these things the “Ramses Twins.” Here’s how they looked after several days of gluing and cutting and layering:

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You can see that I’ve outlined the shendyt. Also, the feet are still just kind of shapes. I would have to wait for the plinth box to be built before building them up.

Carving the Foam

Now it was time to make a real mess. Seriously, Styrofoam is really awful to work with. I had to wear a filter mask so I wouldn’t breath the stuff in. I tried to clean up after every session, but I kept finding bits and pieces everywhere. Under my watch band. In my ears. Between my toes (if I had been wearing sandals while working). You never get it all. I would have one of the other guys give me a once-over with a Shop-Vac after each carving session, but I still found bits and pieces when I got home. it’s just how things were.

Here are a few photos of roughing in the legs:

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That was the easy part. The torsos and heads were much trickier. Oddly enough, the armpits were the hardest. It was tricky to get the right angle to cut through.

The process was one of shaping by degrees. I would use the steak knife to hack off corners and gouge out areas. Then I would work with the planer to smooth things out. That part of the process was a lot like shaping a surfboard (or so I’m told). The shoe rasp has both rough and smooth sides, rounded and flat, and it was helpful for grinding out some of the finer details. Sometimes I would hit the foam with a heat gun to shrink and firm up the surface a bit, then smooth and shape it with the rasp.

I worked on the statues side by side, trying to keep things even. You can see, though, that when I got them stood up (with my gorgeous daughter to show the scale), the heads were different shapes, and there were other obvious differences. But they were really coming along:

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Still needed to box in the plinths so I could work on the feet. Kevin, our sceneshop stud, took care of that while I was doing something else. I also added strips of foam to the tops and bottoms of the plinths to give it some architectural detail. And also … feet and toes and sandals!

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The feet are intentionally foreshortened. The whole design is slightly flattened because we just couldn’t fit a full-depth statue up in the flies. But nobody would notice that from the audience. You’ll notice in the photo of the feet that I used some drywall compound to fill in some cracks and smooth some rough areas that the planer couldn’t get to. Some more examples:

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I realized at this time I had forgotten to give the Twins any ears. I carved some and glued them on, then filled in those cracks as well. After letting the drywall mud dry overnight, I sanded it and did a little more smoothing. Then I took the Twins outside and blasted them with a leaf blower to get all the dust and stuff off so they were ready to paint.

Please don’t say anything about the faces. Faces are hard.

Painting and Decorating

Styrofoam really sucks up paint, so I knew we needed at least one base coat before we got to the bling. I found some tan in the paint shop, so that’s what we used.

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Several people wanted to stop right here. With the base coat, the Ramses Twins actually look remarkably like the statues in the temple of Luxor:

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(Yeah, that’s me in my work clothes.)

But no. In our version of “Joseph,” Egypt is like Vegas, and the Pharaoh is Elvis. That means they’ve gotta get blinged:

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The tan coat helped the gold paint go a lot further. It was pretty thin, and dripped everywhere. I ended up doing two coats. After that it was time to bring them in and add the hand-painted details. I used the same color palette I’ve seen in death masks and sarcophagi: blue, green, red and black. The idea was just to make them pop on the stage.

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I also added some hieroglyphs to the front of the plinths. The stuff in the middle is just gibberish (but mostly real hieroglyphs). The two cartouches actually belong to Ramses himself. Here’s how you “spell” his name in hieroglyphics:

ramses-cartouches

I wanted the plinths to be as identical as possible, so I worked out the design on a piece of template paper and then transfered them to the gold-plated plinth fronts with transfer paper:

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And here are the statues with the finished embellishments and hieroglyphs:

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Again, please don’t say anything about the faces. Faces are hard.

Final Touches

At this point I actually had to drop this project to work on another one (palm trees that turned into painted Egyptian columns). I didn’t get back to the Ramses Twins until a day or so before opening night. I realized I hadn’t added the cobra detail on the headdress or the crook and the flail in their hands. I ended up making the flail out of a dowel, with gaff tape covering the handle and strips of twisted gaff tape hanging off it for the stripes. Quick and dirty, but it worked.

The crook is a piece of coat hanger wrapped in white felt, which I wrapped in white gaffer tape. I bent it into a candy cane shape and added strips of black gaff tape.

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I carved the cobras from foam scraps and painted them with the same paint I used on the body. Added the details (including green sequins for eyes) and hot glued everything to the Twins.

I got a lot of very kind compliments from audience members about the Ramses Twins and how great they looked on stage. But the biggest compliment came the Monday before we opened. The statues had already been hung and flown, but I needed to take some measurements to finish the crook and flail. I asked Bruce, our stage manager to bring the statues down while I got out a ladder. The director was giving notes to the cast so the stage was clear. As I was coming back, this enormous sound erupted from inside the theater. When I got inside, I saw that it was the entire cast, screaming and applauding these two set pieces, which they were seeing for the first time.

For a volunteer theater worker, that’s the best praise possible.

Last night, we closed “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” After the performance, we struck the set and hauled off the Twins to be boxed up and stored. As we loaded them onto the trailer, I kept cautioning the other helpers about how fragile the pieces were. (Foam is very delicate, and we want to be able to use these babies again.) One of the guys said, “Wow, you’re really protective of these things.”

Of course I am. They took a lot of work to create. And I’m really proud of how they turned out. Here they are on stage. My son was Joseph (center stage in the blue and gold) and my daughter is the second narrator from the left.

joseph-statues

Until next time…

on-the-trailer

Casting Has Consequences

My wife and I have been involved in theater for much of our lives. We have directed shows, served as assistant and musical directors as well as stage managers. I’m actually a published, award-winning playwright (though that happened long ago). Both of us have theater degrees. Offstage, we’ve built sets, fabricated props, painted backdrops, sewn costumes, played in pit orchestras, and designed programs and publicity. It’s safe to say there’s not a job in theater that at least one of us hasn’t done.

I wanted to say something about casting, which is probably the most baffling aspect of theater: casting. Let me state right up front that this is my opinion. Others may have different thoughts. Feel free to present your own perspective in the comments below.

Primary Casting Considerations

Straight plays: When it comes to non-musical theater, a role should always go to the person who can most convincingly portray the character as envisioned by the director. Physical characteristics (whether the actor is male or female, tall or short, thin or fat, attractive or not) are often a consideration, but they usually shouldn’t be primary. The play’s the thing, as the Bard says, and casting should involve putting the best available actor to play the part.

Musicals: For musical theater, priority should almost always be given to the person with the most appropriate singing voice for the role. Especially for lead parts with a lot of solo singing, it’s critical that the actor’s vocal range, quality, and singing ability be matched to the part he or she will be playing. For certain roles, dancing ability could possibly edge out singing ability, but from that, though everything else—including looks and body type and so on—is secondary to the voice. Audiences attend musicals to hear the music, and nothing does more to spoil a musical than a substandard voice in a leading part.

(And yes, Russell Crowe, we’re all looking at you.)

School Productions

For school-sponsored shows, the people doing the casting have a few other things to think about. Is the student struggling academically? Is the student in sports or other activities that could conflict with rehearsals? How is the student’s attitude and work ethic? Has the student been flaky in the past, dropping out of or under-performing in other roles?

While these considerations can impact a director’s casting decisions, the primary ones—acting ability for straight plays and singing ability for musicals—should still receive the heaviest considerations.

Not everybody agrees with this. Last year Melanie co-directed a junior high school musical. Her co-director insisted on giving the biggest lead part to a kid who was (I’m allowed to say this because I’m not an educator) a total douchebag. “Giving so-and-so the lead would be good for him,” her co-director whined. “I just know he will rise to the occasion!” Other things being equal, Melanie believed in giving choice roles to students who earned them through hard work and positive behavior. The co-director overruled her, and the entire production (and the entire cast) suffered because of that decision.

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More recently, one of our teenagers was cast in a role that was very much against type. At the same time, a major lead role was given to a person with an incredibly limited vocal range. During each show, we sat and cringed as this actor tried and mostly failed to hit the high notes required by the part. When we asked the director about her decision to match that actor to that role, she said, “He just really needed it.”

I’m sorry. Theater is about personal growth, but casting an inadequate singer in a lead role (whether the actor needs it or not) is simply audience abuse.

Community Theater Productions

AuditionPleaAnother special case is community theater. These are usually small, under-funded, under-staffed groups who do theater as a labor of love. The better groups often attract top talent, while other groups actually have to beg people to audition. Casting decisions sometimes actually come down to who is available and willing to put in the time. Also, since much of the offstage work is done by those involved in the production, offstage skills are likely to be a factor in casting decisions.

Community theater groups are notoriously cliquish. Many are run by a group of cronies who take turns either starring in or directing show after show after show. Once a group like this becomes entrenched, it can be nearly impossible for outsiders to get roles.

I’ve seen theater groups that cast essentially the same group of people in every show, sometimes out of necessity but often just because that’s what they do. It’s common practice for directors to cast spouses and friends and children, regardless of the availability of more talented actors.

Sometimes casting decisions come down to expediency. I’ve known groups to cast spouses in leads simply because they knew it would be a way to guarantee both would be at all rehearsals. I knew one group that always cast the same non-singer in a small role in every production … because he had his own power tools and was willing to construct sets. I once saw a director decide between two equally matched players because one of them had a pickup truck for hauling stuff.

Participation Points

With both community theater and school productions, finding people who are willing to do additional work is crucial. I can’t think of a single production I’ve been involved in that hasn’t involved extra volunteer work. In The Music Man, I helped with makeup and a few set pieces. For Shrek, The Musical, I painted the “Freak Flag.” For The King and I, I painted the two schoolroom maps, fabricated an easel to hold them, and also built a last-minute sailing ship. When my wife and kids are in productions, we always try to pitch in as well. I generally build sets and Melanie helps with costumes and props.

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In our recent experience with Aladdin Jr., for which my wife was the musical director and all three of our kids had lead parts, I designed the set, designed and built the “royal box,” fabricated props (including swords and foam-rubber bread loaves). I did design and layout on the program (a 20-hour job) and built and sculpted the “Cave of Wonders” set piece (an 18-hour job). I did specialty makeup for dress rehearsals and all performances.

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We have helped with every single school production that any of our kids have ever been in. Should offstage participation have an impact on a director’s decision about who to pick for a particular role? I think the answer should probably be: sometimes.

Casting Consequences

A while ago, I auditioned for a second show with a new theater group. After callbacks, I discovered that—for only the second time in my musical theater career—I had been offered a non-singing role. (The first time was the first show with the same group … a trend I would prefer not to perpetuate.) After I turned down the role (which I considered a slap in the face), the assistant director said, “We’d still really like you to help with the sets.”

Um, no.

If I’m involved in a show with a community theater group, I’m happy to contribute wherever and whenever I can. But I don’t do musical theater to take non-singing roles. This particular show was chock full of great parts for “grownup male” singers. If you want me involved, make sure I’m involved. But don’t give the leads and even the secondary characters to all your friends and associates and then expect me to put in hours on your set.

Not too long ago, two of our children were being considered for major roles in a school musical. Since I’d pitched in on previous shows, the director asked me to take charge of a major scene-shop project—one that would require almost 100 hours to do right. The callback list suggested that both of my children were being considered for major roles. When the cast list came out, however, it turned out that both children were passed over in favor of actors who (in both my and my wife’s opinion) were just plain wrong for those parts.

Both of my kids were assigned to what were essentially “ensemble” roles—in spite of the fact that they had voices (and other talents) better suited for roles that were given to other actors. With just one exception (in my opinion and the opinion of my wife), every main lead in the show had been dreadfully miscast. And yet I was apparently still expected to dedicate my nights and weekends for the next three months to a show that can only turn out to be another round of audience abuse.

Um, no.

A helpful hint to both school and community theater groups: when you make casting decisions, you’re determining how successful (or unsuccessful) your production will be. If you cast your friends and family and favorites over more talented actors, you’d better be certain that they have the talent to carry the show. If you award parts based on who needs the part—regardless of who is the best possible choice—you shouldn’t be surprised when others lose faith in the productions you put on the stage.

Also, unless you have an unlimited supply of skillful volunteers, it’s probably best if you make sure that the people you cast (or their family members) are willing and able to put in the work so that all the critical pieces of the production fall in place in time for opening night.

And above all, please don’t abuse your audiences by staffing your lead roles with people who can’t sing. That’s a perfect way to ensure that fewer and fewer people buy tickets the next time around.