The Tempest--Scene Design

Prospero and the Ariels

The Tempest by William Shakespeare was produced winter semester, 2013 in the Snow Black Box Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Synopsis
Prospero, who is the rightful Duke of Milan has been exiled to an island where he discovered magical tomes and equipment and mastered it.  He has also used his conjuring to bind the magical denizens of the island to him, namely Ariel and Caliban.  He has reared his daughter on the island for seventeen years.

With the aid of his magic and Ariel, he discovers his brother, Antonio who usurped his Dukedom and Alonso, the king of Naples are on a ship.  Through conjuring, he creates a storm that drives their ship to the island and then shipwrecks it.  The passengers and crew are stranded in different parts of the island and  Prospero commands Ariel to look after them.

Miranda, Prospero's daughter, runs into Ferdinand who is the son of the king.  He is the first man she has seen other than her father and the monster, Caliban.  They fall in love with one another, naturally.

The other crew and passengers of the ship provide comic relief in the play and there are great scenes involving some of them and Caliban.  Ultimately, though the plot spirals around until the confrontation with Prospero and his brother.  In the climax of the play,  Antonio begs Prospero for forgiveness which is granted.  There are great themes of repentance, redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation in this play.

Concept
Justin Bates, the director of The Tempest was very interested in an anachronistic approach to this play.  The play was written in 1610 but we played it in modern times.  He was also very interested in shadow play for many of the magical moments.  He also wanted the part of Ariel to be played by five people who sometimes would all be on stage acting as one and other times act as individuals.  He also said that Ariel could exit from stage left and immediately enter from stage right etc...

At the time, I had been (and continue to this day to be) inspired by the work of Georges Mèliés, who was a pioneer in cinema special effects.  Mèliés' most well known film is an adaptation of Jules Verne's A Trip To The Moon.  Mèliés shot all of his movies on a stage on his property.  The stage had a hardwood floor and all the magical scenery was placed on top of it.  I was particularly inspired by an image from a Mèliés film called The Mysterious Island.

Design
I drew a thumbnail sketch, that measures roughly one and a half inches by about two inches of my idea for the stage setting.  Then I drew larger study drawing to present to the director.  The stage would be set in one corner of the Black Box Theatre and we would create a modified thrust seating package.

Thumbnail sketch of The Tempest

Study for the set design of The Tempest

I designed a hardwood floor on a rake for the main acting deck.  The director wanted to be able to have Ariel and Caliban enter from trap doors in the stage floor so I placed three traps arbitrarily throughout the space.

On the back of the deck, I designed a Georges Mèliés style stage set with a cave and a shop built, magical tree.  The idea for the tree was that Prospero may have taken a limb from that tree to create his magical staff.  At the end of the play, he would return the staff to the tree.

One of our Ariels was very athletic and a gymnast and so for her we bought hand and footholds from a climbing wall and I designed a climbing route with her on the cave front.  I thought Ariel would appear more organic if she were climbing around once in awhile.

Inside the cave opening, I designed a large sheet of muslin to be hung and create both a projection screen for our shadow plays and to act as a cyclorama when it wasn't being utilized as a rear projection screen.  The screen was actually double hung and had a trip catch on it because the director wanted the lovers to be revealed at the end.  The idea was to illuminate the lovers behind the screen, then trip both drops.  The front drop fell to the ground and the rear drop fell from the grid behind the lovers.  This was done because we didn't want backstage to be visible to the audience for the last five minutes of the show.  We had a team of students design and direct the shadowplays.

Finally, because the island was a mystical place, I thought there could be nothing more magical than a part of the set opening and revealing a giant, amethyst geode bookcase during the scenes inside of Prospero's cell.  I've always been a rockhound.  It made sense to me.

Execution
Our technical director, Ray Versluys, came to us from the movie industry.  He has techniques and connections from that industry that have made our production values better.  As a designer, I never worry about whether something is possible or not.  I know that if I can imagine it, Ray can build it.

The cave and the tree were created by building a superstructure out of sonotube, scrap lumber, cardboard, chicken wire and gauze.  Then he sprayed them with two part urethane foam.  Think Great Stuff on steroids.  Once the foam cured, we carved it and painted it.  The climbing wall was built before the urethane was sprayed so we could hide the handholds.

The carpenters build a large boulder that was hinged so it would swing out and expose the bookcase.  I created the amethyst crystals with my prop class and did the finish work on the geode bookcase.  A tutorial for how we did this can be found here.

Everything else was basic theatre set construction.  There had to be tunnels under the set for the players to enter and exit through the trap doors, and the trip drops were built on plans that are hundreds of years old.

Ray also designed lights for this show.  It was a beautiful lighting design, magical, mystical.  A set is only as good as it's lit.

Antonia Clifford created the sound design for this production of The Tempest.  Sound design is the youngest of the design disciplines in theatre.  Our production values have gone up considerably since she started not only designing our sound but also teaching students how to design sound for live theatre.  Her sound design for The Tempest was brilliant.

The set as it appeared when the audience arrived

The tree, lit magically

Ariel on the climbing wall

The versatility of a piece of fabric and colored lighting 

We also attached a clothesline in the opening

More versatility in light

And more

And more

The feast from below

The ship shadowplay

The tempest begins

Terror on the deck

scary beasts in shadowplay

The true form of Ariel

The lovers revealed in shadowplay.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the two trip drops

The amethyst bookcase

With Prospero for scale

This was a great opportunity for me as a set designer.  This felt like a complete production.  There was a great collaborative effort on the parts of everyone involved, the director, the design team, the technicians and the performers.  All in all a very good production of one of Shakespeare's greatest plays.  I was fortunate to have been a part of it.

Production Details
Directed by Justin Bates
Scene Design by Gary Benson
Costume Design by Kathy Schmid
Lighting Design by Ray Versluys
Sound Design by Antonia Clifford
Technical Director:  Ray Versluys
Costume Shop Director:  Patty Randall

Macbeth--Scene Design

Lady Macbeth, hands dripping with Duncan's blood

Macbeth, by William Shakespeare was produced Winter Semester, 2010 in the Snow Black Box Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Synopsis
The story of Macbeth is well known.  Macbeth and Banquo, heroes of the Scottish king Duncan happen upon the three weird sisters, witches who tell them that he, Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and thereafter king of Scotland.  They tell Banquo he will sire a line of kings but will not attain kingship himself.

Shortly after, a messenger arrives and hails Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor because the previous thane had taken up arms against the king and was sentenced to death.  Macbeth instantly begins to believe the witches and tells his wife about their prophecies.  Lady Macbeth has no reservations about her own ambitions and commands Macbeth to slay Duncan while he is a guest in their castle.

Thus begins Macbeth's descent into murder and madness.  He finds he has to commit many murders to cover up the first.  He is haunted by the ghost of his friend, Banquo whom he also had put to death.  Lady Macbeth does not escape the fate of madness either as she sleepwalks and attempts to rid herself of the blood on her hands.  Lady Macbeth committs suicide rather than live with the guilt.

Macbeth lives with the confidence of the witches prophecy that he will rule until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane and that no man born of woman can slay him.  When he realizes that the English army, led by Macduff is advancing on Dunsinane, concealing themselves with hewn boughs from the trees of Birnam Wood he panics.  He still does not believe he can be killed until his final battle with Macduff where it is revealed that Macduff was from his "mother's womb untimely ripped."

Macbeth is beheaded and Malcolm, Duncan's son is placed upon the throne.

Concept
Roger Merrill, the director wanted our production of Macbeth to be both simple and complex.  He wanted the overall design to be austere with little scenery and just a few furniture pieces and changes in light to indicate change of scene.  He also wanted to have trap doors and elevators concealed within the stage to provide entrances and exits for the witches.  He had an idea that the witches would come up on the battlefield through the stage and drag the fallen soldiers through the trapdoors to hell.

We also decided we could tell the story better with a thrust stage.

I suggested that we paint a map of Scotland, on parchment, on the floor with the important placenames indicated.  That way the stage could be wherever we wished it to be.  Somewhere in the discussion the idea of having strips of fabric hanging at the back of the stage as a projection surface was mentioned.  I don't remember who suggested it, either Roger or Richard Clifford, the lighting designer.

There were between twenty and thirty images we wished to project on the fabric strips.  We originally wanted to project charcoal drawn images of each of the castles indicated in the script as well as animations of the spectres and ghosts Macbeth was seeing.  We ran a few animation tests to see if this was a feasable idea and unfortunately it proved too costly and would have required five projectors as well as the purchase of a computer program to integrate and intercut them.  We also did not have the time available to make this a reality even if we'd had the money.  Sadly, we ultimately had to abandon that aspect of the concept.  Richard did make use of the fabric strips as a cyclorama though.

Execution
I made a couple of quick sketches in conté of my impressions of the set from my discussions with the director.  The first sketch was just of the set.  In the second set, I added a witch and a cauldron and tried to be a little more expressive.

First sketch of Macbeth

Second Sketch of Macbeth

The height of the stage became the primary consideration because of the traps and elevators.  I wanted the stage to be as low as possible and still accomodate actors and stage machinery.  Ray Versluys, the technical director said he needed at least four feet from the floor of the Black Box to the top of the deck for the elevators.  The compromise we had to make because of this was to eliminate the row of chairs on the stage floor because of sightline issues. 

Roger wanted the battles to erupt on stage so I added three sets of stairs at the rear of the stage and one set of stairs on the front.  This allowed a great number of people to enter the stage in a very short time.

Ray modified a design for a fast/slow trap which required stage weights, an arbor and a technician underneath the platform to operate it.  The biggest challenge was to reweight the arbors each time the traps were used.  The more weight, the slower the trap.  The witches would walk over their trap and literally disappear into the floor.  At other times they would pop up out of the floor.  That was the fast part of the elevator.  Sometimes they would shrink into the floor.  That was the slow part of the apparatus.  In addition, the elevators needed to be locked when not in use so actors on stage wouldn't inadvertantly fall through the floor.

The witches emerge from the traps

The next major element was the backdrop which I divided into five strips of fabric.  I offset them so three were in the rear and two were in front.  I staggered them in that way to make them easier for actors to enter and exit the stage.  I designed the fabric strips to be abstracted military banners, but with no color or identifying markings.  I also shredded the bottoms of each of them to give more texture to the set.

We painted the banners with washes of raw sienna paint to give them the aged feeling.  Richard lit the banners in different colors depending on the feel of the scene and then added texture with gobos.

Malcolm and army at Dunsinane Wood, texture on the banners

Lady Macbeth and Nurse, different texture on banners

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, change of color on banners

I researched medieval maps of Scotland for this production of Macbeth and used them for inspiration for designing the floor treatment.  First the scenic artists base coated the floor with an earthy yellow, then spattered and sponged in lighter and darker tones of the yellow to create a parchment effect.  They then created a scale grid on the drawing and laid out a full size grid on the stage and transferred points from one to another and created the outline of the country.  Then they painted the outline with straight burnt umber paint and feathered the insides in so the outside edge would be sharp but the interior of the map would be blended.  Each of the important place names were lettered in with a Celtic script, and lastly, the compass was added along with medieval ship icons and at least one renaissance style sea serpent.

Duncan and vassals on the map of Scotland.  Full stage view

Banquo and Macbeth, map on stage floor

For many of the scenes, we opted to use only lighting to indicate change of location and time.  For others we brought in furniture or props.  We chose which scenes needed more rendering and which ones did not based primarily on length of scene.  The longer scenes required more packaging and by default, the shorter scenes needed no scenery to convey the images and ideas we were striving for.  For some of the scenes, Richard used window gobos to indicate location.  With this convention, in my opinion, the audience was never lost when location was changed.  The biggest benefit to the Spartan use of scenery was that we didn't have to stop the show to render a scene.

Lady Macbeth, "Out damned spot":  Window gobos

Macbeth's meltdown after seeing the ghost of Banquo:  Use of furniture to change location

When we were going to use projections, the idea was to project images of the eight kings from Banquo on the fabric banners and not use a cauldron.  When we discovered that it would be way too cost prohibitive and time consuming to do the animations, Roger decided we should build a cauldron that would fit over one of the traps and would be large enough for the eight kings, Banquo, Macduff and the little boy to come out of.  We pumped fog up through the opening to give it an eerie look.

Banquo exiting the cauldron

I am glad to be in a theatre department that has a committment to producing the classics.  This was a very good production of Macbeth and it was a joy to work on.  I truly have the best job in the world.

Production Details
Directed by Roger Merrill
Fight Choreography by Amelia Bahr
Scene Design by Gary Benson
Costume Design by Susan Whitfield
Lighting Design by Richard Clifford
Sound Design by Antonia Clifford
Technical Director:  Ray Versluys
Costume Shop Director: Patty Randall

The Comedy of Errors--Costume Design

The Comedy of Errors cast

The Comedy of Errors was produced Fall Semester, 2004 in the Kirkham Arena Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Synopsis
Before our tale begins, the Merchant, Ægeon and his wife, Æmilia had twin sons.  A poor woman also delivered twin sons at the same time.  Ægeon purchased the poor woman's sons to be servants to his sons.  Not long after, the family was sailing across the sea when a storm sank the ship and the family was separated.  Ægeon was rescued with one of his sons and one of the slave sons while Æmilia was rescued with the other of her sons and the other slave.  Ægeon and his boys lived in Syracuse while Æmilia settled in Ephesus.

At the rise of the play, Ægeon has been captured in Syracuse after trying to follow his son, Antipholus who is questing to find his long lost brother.  Because of an archaic law, Ægeon will be put to death because he is a foreign trader.  Put to death, unless of course he can come up with a ransom of 1000 marks in 24 hours. 

The rest of the play is mayhem as the two sets of identical twin brothers navigate the town, bumping into people who know them and think they know them.  Mishap after mishap of mistaken identity until at the end, the twins bump into each other and all is forgiven.  The Abbess who has been sheltering Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse reveals that she is, in fact Æmilia and the whole family is reunited.  The Duke forgives the debt and all is well.

Concept
The director of The Comedy of Errors, Hyrum Conrad told me that since the play takes place in Ephesus, which is in modern day Turkey, he wanted to do this play in Turkish dress.  We were setting this production in the fifteenth century which is when the Byzantine Empire finally fell to the Turks.  I surmised that as the Turks encroached on the Byzantine Empire that they probably coexisted peacefully at times and were warlike at others with the Byzantines.

I suggested to Hyrum that we should have the ruling class be Byzantine and the merchant class be Turkish.  He agreed and I began to research the styles of dress in both the Byzantine world and the Turkish world in the fifteenth century.

Execution
For the Turkish characters, the basic garments were harem style pants, a shirt which was then covered with a cassock or robe.  For the men I fashioned turbans for headgear, and I also added skirts to the women.  Both men and women wore pointy shoes.

Hyrum decided to cast the Duke as a woman and she became the Duchess.  Byzantine noble dress evolved from Roman and Greek dress, but much gaudier.  There were some medieval elements to the undergarments of the time, but all the overgarments were wraps and robes, very toga like. 

I decided that the Duchess would be the only character allowed to wear pearls.  She had two costumes, and each one was trimmed heavily in pearls.  I purchased some fabric from Home Fabrics that was red with a goldenrod thread running through different directions making a grid pattern.  The fabric wasn't blingy enough and I mentioned that I'd like to have a pearl sewn at each intersection of the goldenrod threads.  One of the costume shop workers was also a student in my tech theatre class and voluteered to handstitch each pearl on the cape as part of her service hours for the class.  Her name is Carla Traughber Simon.  This costume was one of the showpieces of the play and I credit her with making it so.

Sketch of Duchess and what would become the pearled cape

The Duches and her pearled cape

The Duchess' second look

I used upholstery and drapery fabrics on this show almost exclusively.  We have a fabric store in Idaho Falls called Home Fabrics which specializes in those types of fabrics.  I did most of my shopping for The Comedy of Errors in that store.  Many of the fabrics have large designs which read really well for period shows such as this.

For Antipholus of Syracuse and Ephesus, I designed their costumes exactly the same with the exception of color.  Each man had Turkish balloon pants, a loose belted shirt and an over cassock.   Each man also wore a turban wrapped around a cap, and the cap was covered in the same fabric as his trousers.  Antipholus of Syracuse was wearing a blue chenille cassock and rust colored trousers, while his long lost brother wore the same outfit but with the fabrics on the cassock and trousers switched.

Antipholus

I designed the Dromios in a similar fashion, switching their trouser and shirt fabrics.  I viewed Dromio as more of an earthy character so I dressed him in dusky earth colors, greens and browns.

Sketch of Dromio

Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse

Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus

Adrianna was Antipholus of Ephesus' wife, and Lucianna was her sister.  Adrianna was sharp and just a little shrewish, not trusting her husband, believing him to be cavorting with the courtesan.  Lucianna was her sister and she was softer and gentler and Antipholus of Syracuse fell in love with her.

For Adrianna, I designed harem pants with a tight cuff with a primitively pleated overskirt in ecru linen.  I designed her cassock to come to points all around the sides and back, each one terminating with a beaded tassel.  In fact I purchased several dozen of the beaded tassels and added them to each of the family members' costumes.  Her arms projected out of slits in the sleeves which then hung almost to the floor, once again terminating with beaded tassels.  Adrianna's cassock was made of a rust colored drapery fabric with gold flowers throughout.

For Lucianna, I designed similar harem pants and the same skirt as Adrianna, but her cassock was softer and rounder.  I used a blue chenille with yellow flower shapes patterned through the fabric.  Her arms were rounded with the lining rolled out at the end of the sleeves and the sides and back of her cassock curved away gently.  Lucianna's sleeves were trimmed with light blue bead tassel fringe.  In addition, Lucianna had two long pieces of fabric which were folded twice and belted with the ends hanging down and terminated with the same beaded tassels.

Each sister had an outside look which included a calf length cape and a pillbox hat trimmed with beads.

Luce was the servant of the two sisters and her costume was earthy like the Dromios' and consisted of harem pants, an underskirt of primitively pleated linen, an overdress and a veiled pillbox hat.

Sketch of Adrianna

Sketch of Lucianna

Sketch of Luce

Adrianna, Lucianna and Luce

Detail of hem on Adrianna's cassock

The girls outerwear

My original sketch for Dromio looked too bourgeoisie and did not make him look like a servant.  I liked the look and so did Hyrum and he suggested I save it and put it on one of the merchants or Angelo the goldsmith.  I went with Angelo and chose a brown chenille fabric for his harem pants and a sage green jaquard for his cassock.  This ended up being one of my favorite costumes in the show.

Originally drawn for Dromio but used for Angelo

Balthazar and Angelo

The courtesan's costume was also one of my favorites in this show.  Her costume consisted of an irridescent peach and gold silk underdress with a purple jaquard cassock trimmed with a wide band of dark teal crushed velvet.  Finally the whole cassock was trimmed with a pale mint green bead fringe.  On first dress rehearsal, everywhere the courtesan moved, the beads dragged across the floor and drowned out any dialogue.  that wouldn't do so I had the costume shop remove the beads along the floor.

The Courtesan with Antipholus of Ephesus

This was a fun show to design.  It was very detailed and I felt fairly imaginative.  I enjoyed the process a great deal.  I was glad that Hyrum wanted to do the show outside of the way it is done traditionally.

The family reunited

Production Details
Directed by Hyrum Conrad
Costume Design by Gary Benson
Lighting Design by Gary Benson
Set Design by Ray Versluys
Costume Shop Director:  Patty Randall
Technical Director:  Ray Versluys