Aaron Justice
Props Artisan
La Fanciulla del West
La Fanciulla del West, or The Girl of the Golden West, is an opera set in the rough and tumble times of the American West. The play centers around a mining town somewhere in California. Much research was done to replicate both how the west actually was, as well as how Hollywood interprets how the west was. As the artisan, I made and collected many props for this show. Then, because it was our most set and prop intensive show, I also helped to run it, unlike the other shows of the Des Moines Metro Opera 2015 season. Not shown in the pictures is the copious amount of caramel color whiskey I made for each run of the show.
Rappaccini's Daughter
Rappaccini's Daughter was a show with a fair amount of technical challenges I had not experienced before, or at least since high school. Set not in the Blank Performing Arts Center, like the other three shows of DMMO, this show was performed at the Des Moines Botanical Gardens outside. Working outside the normal space, and in Des Moines instead of Indianola, meant that we did not have access to all the amenities one might become accustomed to having, like a workshop. On site modifications and repairs were tricky, because we were allowed very few power tools. While I was the prop artisan for this show, I also helped with the installation and strike of both the set and the lighting scaffolding as well as props.