Gerriets Sheer Muslin CS Works Sheer Magic for an Ambitious Production at Connecticut Repertory TheatreIn October, Connecticut Repertory Theatre presented Dead Heavy Fantastic, a play by Robert Farquhar that chronicles a wild night out in the city of Liverpool, England. "Over the course of the show, the action moves through 17 separate locations," explains scenic designer Brenna Sellars, "so the big challenge was differentiating all of those locations" -- especially on the small stage of CRT's 114-seat Studio Theatre. Sellars devised a scenic design incorporating seven fabric-covered panels, all on pivot points so that they could be reconfigured to define spaces of strikingly varied dimensions. Sellars envisioned the panels as multifunctional screens, "I knew I wanted to do shadow play and I wanted to be able to paint on the screens and have them be transparent at certain points in the show and opaque at other times," says Sellars, who was at the time a senior in the BFA design/tech program at University of Connecticut's School of Dramatic Arts (Sellars graduated in May, and is now assistant scenic designer for the summer season at CRT). "What I did not know," says Sellars, "was whether there existed a fabric that could do everything I wanted." "'The Magic Fabric, that's what you need,' said my lighting design professor, Michael Chybowski," Sellars recalls. "What he meant by that was Sheer Muslin CS, which he had used in a show years before." "Gerriets provided us with samples," says Sellars "and we tested away for all the things we wanted the fabric to do. Professor Chybowski was right, it really was magic. It took and held paint exactly the way we wanted it to -- so that the screen would be translucent or opaque depending upon how it was painted and how the light hit it. It took and held dye in the exact purplish-gray shade we needed. The screens turned out to look just like my renderings, with opaque architectural collages on the lower portions and translucent splatter effects in the upper portions." Sellars adds, "Our director, Scott Ripley, fostered close collaboration among all aspects of the production's design, so the lighting, projection, costume, props, and scenic design worked together very cohesively to create a crazy world that keeps changing -- being transformed by color and light -- while the main character has wild experiences in a series of different settings." Nick Pagliante, managing director at Gerriets, points out that "whereas a typical scrim fabric, such as sharkstooth, has a more open weave that would have been too transparent for this application, the magic aspect of Sheer Muslin CS derives from the comparatively tight weave of its Trevira CS fibers, so that the fabric can stop light and also be transparent, depending on how the surface is treated and light is applied." Pagliante also notes that the pricing of Sheer Muslin CS is highly economical compared to traditional sharkstooth scrim. "The CRT production of Dead Heavy Fantastic worked magic with 13 yards of 13'-4"-wide Sheer Muslin CS. They achieved high-impact effect on a very minimal budget." "High performance and cost effectiveness make Sheer Muslin CS ideal for community- and university-based theatres," says Pagliante. "We hope that CRT is the first of many institutions to take advantage of all that Sheer Muslin CS has to offer." Sheer Muslin CS information:
• Inherently flame retardant Trevira CS
• Approximate bolt lengths: 32.8 and 65.6 yards
• Standard colors: ecru, white, and black
• Standard widths: 10' 2", 13' 5", 16' 9", 20'
• Custom dyeing available for widths up to 13' 5", minimum order 65.6 yards
• Polyurethane coating for digital printing available for widths up to 16' 9" 
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