So How Does This Work?

I came in today to begin work on the boat that I had spoke about earlier. It was a difficult but enlightening experience as I worked with a number of tools for the first time. Danny, the actor from my cast who was helping me with building this boat, helped me to realize a lot of the practical ramifications when building something of this size. Today I drew and cut out the shape of the boat from some styrofoam insulation material. After cutting the rough shape out, I then used a hot wire to smooth out the rough edges. I finished all the sides with some sandpaper. Danny then built the two L-shaped brackets for the back of the boat. I helped whenever possible. I then began painting the first coat of brown for the boat. The process took longer than I had expected so I left the boat as is. I will paint on the "wood" effect sometime later in the week during class, but this has definitely been a beneficial start. The boat is really the only kind of stage prop I will be using as I hope to capture a minimalist style. I want the audience to be able to focus on the actors and the story as opposed to the background on the stage. I believe the meat of the performance will be coming from what the actors are saying as opposed to what they are doing.