Meet Dan McDonald. He has been a community member in the University Symphony Orchestra for almost 40 years. He is also the mastermind behind each of Music Director and Conductor Barbara Schubert’s mysterious grand entrances. In 2009, McDonald created a spaceship for “Cosmic Adventures!” out of refurbished pieces of wood and aluminum foil. (See photos)
This year’s theme is “The Wild, Wild West!” Do you think Maestra Schubert will enter in a covered wagon … or on a bucking horse??
Interview:
Each year, at the start of the annual Halloween concert, Barbara Schubert enters Mandel Hall in full costume and make-up, and is often carried in one way or another, into the hall. One year, for example, she entered while riding on top of a giant shark! It is anyone’s guess how she will make this grand entrance each year… So, as the man behind the engineering of these exciting entrances where do you get your inspiration? How long does it take you to design and make these creations?
I believe that the first entrance down the center aisle was Barbara dressed as Princess Jasmine entering on a flying carpet. Then she was Pocahontas in a canoe, which was built in our kitchen. Some entrances are last minute inspirations, like the coffin we built in the garage the night before the “vampire” concert. Some involve no building or complicated planning. For example is the “Pirates of the Caribbean” concert where I, dressed remarkably like Johnny Depp’s version of Jack Sparrow, chased after the dancers from the Hyde Park School of Ballet and returned with my prize, Barbara, flung over my shoulder. My favorite building project was a flying saucer modeled after the balloon-boy hoax of a few years ago. It had to be built in 5 or 6 pieces in order to get out our basement door. The shark took about two weeks of evenings.