Tom in tech: ... and the other one....

is a new adaptation of the seven extant plays of the ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles.
They've been adapted by Sean Graney, a Chicago-local director with whom I've had the pleasure of working several times in the past few years. He's got an amazing ability to adapt classical texts in a way that's visually and thematically fascinating to a modern audience. I love working with Sean, in part because he pushes me outside my comfort zone as a designer. I appreciate getting pushed like that.

anyhow to the basics...

SOPHOCLES: SEVEN SICKNESSES
for The Hypocrites - Chicago at the CHopin Theatre Basement
adapted and directed by Sean Graney
Scenic Design by yours truly and Maria DaFabo
Costume Design by Alison Siple
Lighting Design by Jared Moore
Music Adaptor - Kevin O'Donnell
Sound Design by Steven Ptacek

THE STORY
The whole production intertwines 7 greek plays into an evening of bloody and dirty deeds. It includes Sophocles' takes on the three OEDIPUS-family stories (REX, AT COLONUS, and finally ANTIGONE), as well as those that dealt with the HERAKLES and Trojan War (PHILOKTETES, IN TRACHIS, and AJAX). It roughly follows the fall of Thebes, and the Greek's belabored mid-Trojan-War stasis, before the tide of war turned their way. The show runs over 4 hours long and includes 2 intermissions, and the cost of dinner with you tickets. At its' base it's a story about love, loss, and the vagarities of a war that some feel not worth fighting... in other words it has a prescience that is rather apropos to today.

The oddities of this show for me are that, aside from the rough run I saw last night. I won't get to see it again until after an audience is there... i.e. I will not be present for pretty much ALL of tech. When I was approached to design it, I was already contracted for SPUNK at Court, and as much as I love working with Sean I couldn't pass up the project that I was already working on. so The Hypocrites were kind enough to agree to let me design it ALONGSIDE the wonderful Maria DaFabo, who's been the prop guru on several shows I've done with them over the last few years. She's great! and for some reason thought it a fun chance to also sit in the designer's seat. So we've been in close contact all along, but she's the one actually see the show through "on the ground" as it were.

The other oddity is that we're doing it in the basement space at the Chopin Theatre. It's a ... challenging space to work in for many reasons... It has a set of 6 columns in the space that break it up and are NOT removeable, forcing interesting staging choices be made. The ceiling of the space slopes from about 10 feet at the entrance to closer to 8' at the back of the space. The floor is concrete and cannot be painted... let's just say there are a lot of restrictions.

In our discussions, Sean wanted a space that evoked a hospital as there are two nurses that are "thru-lines" by being present in all 7 plays. and he wanted a space where the audience was ENVELOPED in the action, not just separate viewers... so to that end. we created a space where the audience will enter in thru the flipping double doors that are used throughout the show... they'll have to go up a couple steps and thru the doors before going down a couple steps into the "house" on either side of the 14'-side walkway that is the main playing area that runs the full length of the room. Instead of chairs, the audience will be seated on padded benches that are tiled in a similar way to the way the walls of the "hospital" are. The colors are the blue, white and red that were common in American hospitals in the 1950s. There are traps in the floor that allow access to action and characters unseen.