RETURNING HOME

SENSE AND SENSIILITY August 28, 2011

THE STORY

Based on the novel by Jane Austen, SENSE is the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Their father has recently died, which makes their situation dire, as his estate must pass to their elder half-brother, John, leaving them virtually penniless. Before they leave Norland Park, Elinor meets Edward Ferrars, brother to her sister-in law, and they take a fancy to each other. A “situation” is found for the Dashwood family far away at Barton Park, the estate of a distant relation, the Middletons. Here, Marianne finds two suitors, the more reserved Col. Brandon and the impulsive Mr. Willoughby, to whom she’s particularly attracted due to his energy and evident passion for life. A friend, Mrs. Jennings, take the sisters to London for a visit, where it becomes known in a confidence to Elinor, that Edward is already secretly engaged. Meanwhile, at a society ball, Marianne discovers the inconstancy of her love, Mr. Willoughby. From Col. Brandon, Elinor learns that Willoughby is even more of a cad than was previously known. The downtrodden Marianne takes the news hard, and begins to become sick. News comes that Edward is being pressured by his family to forego his secret engagement in favor of a far wealthier woman, he refuses and is cut off from his family.  Col. Braondon knowing this offers him a position at a parsonage, which he accepts. Their visit ended, they begin the journey from London back to Barton, where Marianne falls dangerously ill and takes to bed. Col. Brandon aids at her bedside, and Marianne slowly recovers. Being somewhat humbled by the news of her Willoughby, and touched by the care he gave her during her illness, a new love begins to blossom between Marianne and Brandon. Finally, Edward reappears to meet Elinor. His engagement broken he is free to offer his hand to Elinor, who rapturously accepts. Thus Elinor’s SENSE prevails, and Marianne’s SENSIBILITY finds a sturdier base, with two couples about to be wed.

THE TEAM

Jane Austen’s SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Adapted and directed by Jon Jory

Scenic Design: yours truly

Costume Design: Rachel Laritz

Lighting Design: Brian Lillienthal

Composer/Sound Design: Joe Cerqua

I originally designed this show at Northlight Theatre in Chicago back in March of this year. It was picked-up by Actors Theatre of Louisville to begin their new season. It’s been interesting and exciting for a number of reasons… First, to get another stab at a show is somewhat of a rarity… It allowed me the chance to fix a few things that I wasn’t happy with about the Northlight production… small things, actually, things probably completely unseen by other people, but things I’m glad to correct, nonetheless. Secondly, it gave me a chance to “go home” to Louisville, where I worked for 4 years in the late 90s as the Resident Assistant Scenic Designer under Paul Owen, who was a major influence on the designer I’ve become. There’s something just downright EXCITING about coming back here and designing a show on the mainstage, with Jon Jory directing, of all people. Makes me feel like a grown-up!

The design of the show is somewhat abstract, and I would even call it a “colorist” approach. Colorism being a phase of stage design history particularly popular in the 70s and 80s, which began in Europe, in which a limited color palette was utilized for a large space, allowing lighting and usage of the stage space to delineate location and time.

Jon and I went through nearly 30 (ad I’m not hyperbolizing here) different initial sketches for the Northlight production. Playing with different themes, ideas and spatial usage.  Here are some of the rejected VERY rough sketches…

We kept coming back to some elements (like the benches and the door) and those ended up in the final design, but in different locations/perspectives than in these. We also had to deal with the very REAL limitations of the Northlight space and budget, which also weeded out some ideas. The design contains a large, tall wall with an off-center hole, an “inner circle” which contains a doorway and two small ottomans and an “outer ring” which contains three long benches.  

Within the abstraction though, there is meaning. The circle motif runs throughout… the hole in the wall, the inner circle on the floor, the curved crown molding overhead… for me they represent the movement of the piece… there are over 50 scenes, some of which are no longer than a handful of lines, and while we couldn’t possibly REALISTICALLY represent each one, each is made individual by how the space is used, how the lighting bring the scope of the scene IN or OUT, and what parts of the PERMANENT set are used… furniture glides in and out by actors carrying things on and off, and it gives the whole performance a feeling of being a circular dance, or gavotte.  More later!

but first, here's a quick pic of the LOUISVILLE production in tech...

a shout out to the crew

THE STUDENT PRINCE - August 16, 2011

THE STORY

In The Student Prince, a young affable prince has been betrothed since childhood for a politically-sensitive marriage to a young Princess not of his choosing. But at the top of the show he is on his way to college for a year at Heidelberg, where his old tutor/favorite friend went. Of course, he immediately falls in love with a virtuous and beautiful barmaid at the inn where he is staying. Thus ends act 1. In act 2, his studies (and love life) are interrupted with news that the king has taken ill, and he must return home to the castle at Karlsberg immediately. He wants to elope with Kathe, but realizes that his duty is to country and he, regretful, returns home, promising to write her daily. In the first scene of act 3, the formal betrothal ceremony takes place, but just prior, he realizes that his 'handlers' have interrupted all his letters to Kathe, and hers to him. After the ceremony his reverie about his time in Heidelberg causes his to run away to see Kathe again. The final scene is back outside the inn, the Princess arrives to meet Kathe, and they realize that they are not such different people.  The Prince finds Kathe and explains how they've been misled, but Kathe is resolute that they are of two separate worlds, but is heartened by the fact that their time together did indeed mean as much to him as it did to her. Kathe takes her tearful leave of her Prince, and the curtain falls as the Princess and the Prince take each others' hands and begin walking away from the Inn, toward their new life as the King and Queen.

THE TEAM

THE STUDENT PRINCE by Sigmund Romberg

Produced by Light Opera Works -- Evanston, IL

at Cahn Auditorium, campus of Northwestern University

Director/Choreographer: Rudy Hogenmiller

Scenic Design: yours truly

Costume Design: Jeff Hendry

Lighting Design: Andrew Meyers

A  CREW IS A WONDERFUL THING!

they are (typically, and HOPEFULLY) quick, quiet, exacting, and ideally COMPLETELY unseen by the audience, but without them we 'd be in SUCH trouble. Especially in a multi-locational operetta like STUDENT PRINCE.  Here's a pic to show what they are up to BEFORE the show to help get things set up.

 You'll note people milling about the cyc (that the sky-type piece of fabric at the back of the stage).

For this show there are some rather quick and exacting changes the set must make, and those are planned for and rehearsed during tech. For this show there are shifts of set pieces, flying pieces of scenery, furniture and properties that have to get placed. 

In designing such a set, it often takes a lot of time and LOTS of redrawing to figure out exactly where everything CAN fit together. For this show, there are several moving pieces of scenery backstage that have to fit offstage, AND fit properly in their place onstage. It can be a logistical challenge to put it all together, very much like the spatial-relationship puzzles we all did in grade school, but that's part of the challenge I love in this job... the technical marrying with the artistic. 

And here's a picture of "outside the Inn Of The Three Golden Apples" near the University of Heidelberg.

The other thing that is of interest, I think, in this design is the multiplicity of scenic usage. The exterior part of the Inn (seen in act 1 and act 3, scene 2) is built on castors and in revolving become part of the Princes upstairs suite of rooms for act 2 (pic below).  

Pardon the long delay in ROCKLAND post #2.. quixotic internet access at the Rozsa Center and life intervening got in the way, hopefully I'll catch up while here in Louisville...

I'm finally including pictures of the ROCKLAND set in this post. yippee!

The set: There are a number of locations required in the text… outside the mine, in town, at the temperance hall, in churches, a couple homes, and the mine office, etcetera. So in early conversations with the director, we decided on a UNIT-SET* approach.

·      - a UNIT-SET is one where the space is designed in such a way that it can be used as different locations easily with changes in lighting and props/furniture, and directorial usage. Typically it includes multiple entrance possibilities, and often includes different platform levels. Shakespeare plays are often done on unit sets, as there are always multiple shifts in location. From a producer’s perspective, they’re also useful as they can be cheaper than trying to detail multiple realistic locations that would require lots of mechanics to shift scenery on and offstage. From my point of view, these are often fun to design, as they require me think a little more abstractly about space.

For this show, Jussi, the director, and I looked at  a lot of mine-related architecture, including a lot of pictures of the original Rockland mine, which has now been completely dismantled and of which no remnants remain.

There are two predominant visual textures in the set, patinated copper and rough-hewn, aged wood, (in this cast most of it is pine pulled from a 75-year old demolished barn about 30 miles from Houghton, MI, where we were doing the show). Thematically, these two materials are incredibly important and speak to the time and story. The COPPER is what was being mined, and as such the center of the greedy businessmen who ran the mine with little thought for the workers, and the wood was used to hold the beams and create the support structure that keep the mines nominally safe. In the design we used these "real" textures in abstract ways...i.e. the COPPER was used to delineate the hills/mountains into which the workers bored to obtain it. These "mountains" are made to resemble copper plates riveted together, and then painted so that the plates appear to have aged in differing stages... the "deeper" the plate, the more corroded and patinated with verdant green, the "more recently added" plates are less patinated. Jussi and I really loved the way that copper, as it ages and gathers patina, grows greener and more vibrant.

The ROUGH-HEWN WOOD was used to frame the mine entrance into the mountainside as well as for the silhouette of the mine-shaft building upstage left, and the false-proscenium (that regrettably doesn't photograph very well in my pictures from the show). 

scene 2  - the party at the White Rose Temperance Hall

scene 8 - at Johanna's dinner table

act 2 scene 1 - the local saloon

in these three pictures, I hope you can see the difference that a UNIT SET can utilize to help tell a story. simply by moving people about in different traffic patterns, adding (or subtracting tables, chairs and stools), and different lighting, the focus changes and the FEELING of the space is different... the Temperance Hall is bright and airy, Johanna's dining room feels small and confined, and the sallon has a different energy about it.