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).
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