Durability

Email conversation with Baillie Players Founding Managing Executive Artistic Director/Owner/Performer Buren Martin, dated March 4, 2015:

Me: Just saw the attached photo on your Facebook page. (Really good photo, by the way.) Are those all original materials? The arch, the flat, curtains, boxes, etc.? And if so, when did they first go out? I’m not sure which impresses me more, the construction or the maintenance.

Buren: Yes that’s your handiwork…
Repainted once… It was originally a cream color with those same red stripes…
The arch is the same red it has always been… Along with the two transoms… Everything that is red is the original paint…
The curtains are what Janet originally sewed up… And the two transom curtains, green on the show side and red on the backstage side…
I’m going to say ’97 or ’98 …
The flats had originally been used in the first Oz tour that went out… You dismantled it … Rebuilt and repainted those flats… The cream color…
The backstage part of the balcony turns over on its long side onto wheels and the step unit lays on top, then the two biers lay on top of that and the whole thing rolls out the door… High school teachers are still amazed…

Me: Dang. And I just checked my archive disk … The most recent copy I have of the script is dated May 12, 1993. Is it possible, do you think, that you waited five years after that to have the sets built? You never ordered a script from me that you didn’t plan on using more or less immediately, did you? Twenty-two years.

Buren: Oh… Uhmmmmm… In that case, I’m going to say ’93 or ’94…