Week 5: Footsteps and Christmas

This quarter I was given the opportunity to design one of the DCPs in the Nixon, and it happened to be the two one acts directed by Ryan Schwalm and Julianna Ojeda. They were The Footsteps of Doves and I'll Be Home For Christmas, written by Robert Anderson. I was excited to design shows I had never heard of, and I'm glad I could be a part of the production.

The first story in the show is The Footsteps of Doves, and it's about a married couple who have gone to a mattress store in hopes of buying a new bed or beds to make their marriage of 25 years last longer. After reading it several times, and consulting with Ryan we developed the concept of having George, the husband, the main focus of the story. There are parts of the play where he is alone on the stage so we made that seem like the audience is in his mind looking at what he is feeling about both sides of the argument, whether to go with the 54" double bed or change to two twin beds. On the side of the 54", I kept a warmer tone with a bit of a nostalgic look to show that was what he was used to, it was his comfort zone, which also implied sexual connotations. I did this by one special of a cool tone for visibility and a warm down with warm pipe ends to surround the bed. On the opposite side where the twin beds were I kept a stark colder look to represent the new, foreign as well as no more sex for George. It was achieved with cool downs and a cool special. As the play goes on, since George changes inside, the tones change to a more comforting look on the side that is foreign to him. I did this by keeping the previous look but added in some of the warm downs to give the two beds a more neutral tone.

For I'll Be Home For Christmas, I had a harder time finding something else to do with the play other than just visibility. It is a story of a family in the suburbs that talk about their youngest son going through puberty and exploring himself physically, to their teenage daughter and the possibility of giving her contraception, and finally about the husband's fidelity and the wife's attitudes towards infidelity. The play starts off with Chuck on the couch contemplating to himself and drinking beer after coming home early from work. I started off with a down cool and a front cool. A slow build followed to show the rest of the living room. When Edith walks in there is a slow build to show the kitchen which was a cooler look than the living room and it represented the two juxtaposing personalities of Chuck and Edith. throughout the majority of the play, after a short while there is an even slower build to fill the room to allow for visibility throughout the play. Within the last ten minutes, a letter is revealed from the oldest son who is away at college but writes to say he is leaving college. During the reading of the letter I took out most of the warmth of the rooms and only had a spot on Chuck on the couch in the living room, and another wider pool on the daughter, Clarice, reading the letter in the kitchen. After the reading of the letter, the spot on Chuck intensifies and the kitchen spot fades out, then a general fade to black leaving Chuck the last thing the audience sees as he sings "I'll Be Home For Christmas" with fade on him last.

The whole process was absolutely a learning experience and with the help of my graduate mentor, I learned a few things that I will remember for my next design. One is know the space you are working in and know how much light is takes to illuminate the stage without over doing it. Two is you have to work with what you have, sometimes there cannot be anything added so you make it work. Three is similar to two, but sometimes nothing needs to be added, I was able to use the same rep plot for my show no adds or subtracts only color changes and focus areas. The fourth is know what you want or experiment with things until you find what you want. Finally the fifth is be willing to stand by your decisions regardless what a mentor or instructor asks to change; however it is necessary to at least try out their suggestions, and if it is not to your liking then you change it back. This was my biggest learning experience because by the time the show opened it was not how I wanted it to be. My mentor asked me to make a pretty significant change on the night before open. I made the changes and was not satisfied with the outcome. The time between the transitions in Footsteps was originally five seconds for most of them, not all. I was asked to make them longer which I feel did not fit the mood of the play especially for one that was only less than thirty minutes long. I liked the jarring effect of having the cues visible on stage, one audience member asked an actor afterwards if the young woman in the play, the character Jill, was only a figment of George's imagination since the lighting gave a more dream feel rather than a transition from real world and inside George's mind. I'm not trying to put down my mentor at all since he did help me immensely, but this was one thing I should have stood up for which I did not.