Set and done

Bill Woodland reflects on nearly 50 years of theater work

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William Woodland, Bill to his friends, is finally retiring from local theater — for real this time. Over a span of almost 50 years, the 80-yearold Lansing resident designed and built hundreds of sets for local theater productions by Lansing Civic Players, Starlight Dinner Theater and local high schools. Woodland’s contribution to local theater will be honored at Monday’s Pulsar Award ceremony.

Woodland first got involved in local theater in the early ‘60s.

“Well, I was in a barber shop quartet and it didn’t really turn me on,” said Woodland. “It was all male and no involvement from females.”

After his cousin invited him to a Lansing Civic Players production, Woodland decided to try theater.

“I worked backstage and got to know some of the people and there was involvement with the females, so I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’d try that,’” he said. “So I got more involved and more involved. I had just come back from Detroit and I wanted something more to do, and I decided to go with Lansing Civic Players and then they started teaching me.”

Woodland apprenticed under Mack Collins, Lansing Civic Players’ technical director and set designer, until Collins died unexpectedly in 1966. Without a set designer, the company intended to cancel its upcoming production of “Funny Girl.”

“They were going to close the doors and I said, ‘Don’t close them. We’ll figure out some way to do it,’” said Woodland.

Judie Woodland, his wife of 59 years, described the orchestrated chaos that followed.

“(Lansing Civic Players) had a headquarters on North Washington Avenue and he had 50 people coming and going,” she said. “He was so busy, all he could say was, ‘Do this, do this, do this.’ He couldn’t do anything because he was too busy telling people what to do.”

From 1967 to 2000, Woodland worked in the Lansing Civic Players scene shop, designing and constructing sets for five shows per year in addition to sets for high school productions and parade floats.

“Plus teaching full time and a father to four kids,” added Judie Woodland.

Bill Woodland worked as a virologist for Michigan’s Department of Public Health and also taught at Michigan State University, designing and building sets in his spare time.

Woodland “retired” from theater in 2000, but Starlight Dinner Theatre founder Linda Granger drafted him back into active service in 2006. Granger praised his resourcefulness, for Woodland often built sets for under $100 by reusing and recycling pieces from previous productions. Woodland’s last set was for the company’s recent production of “Camelot.”

“He had to build the set pieces so he could store other set pieces inside them because there was no storage space around theater,” said Judie Woodland. “It was kind of a bulky set.”

Woodland says his biggest satisfaction with designing and building sets is seeing them complete.

“I always wanted to make the cast look good. I wasn’t really interested too much in the design except that I wanted to make them look good,” Woodland said. “A lot of the comments from the cast members were that it felt like home to them. It wasn’t so much the design, it was the fact that they felt very comfortable in the sets that I did.”

Woodland’s sets were frequently praised by theater reviewers — even when the rest of the production was not. A City Pulse review described his set for the Starlight Dinner Theatre’s 2010 production of “Opal’s Husband” as “an exquisitely tacky, yet user friendly set that matches the tone of the play perfectly with loud, mis-matched everything.”

Citing his age and poor health, Woodland said this retirement is final. But, like Michael Corleone from “The Godfather,” just when Woodland thinks he’s out, they could pull him back in.

“He retired probably at least five times, and every time somebody would finagle a way to get him to do something,” Judie Woodland said.

Only time will tell if anyone can “finagle” Woodland again.

2014-15 Pulsar Awards

City Pulse awards for best in local theater Open to the public 6 p.m. Monday, July 13 FREE The Riv 231 M.A.C. Ave., East Lansing Food and drinks available for purchase Awards ceremony begins at 7 p.m.

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