Director's Concept
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This is the powerpoint presentation I used to present my initial ideas about Wendy and Peter Pan to the production team. I was working with mostly student designers on this production and with the exception of the one faculty lighting designer, they were all women. It was empowering to work on such a team.
Most of the slides should be pretty self-explanatory, but since the verbal notes are not Included with the presentation, I have provided some context below about some of the more obscure slides. Viz: This is a show full of light. I was really interested in this short video clip as my viz, not only because I am a product of an 80s childhood, but also because I was fascinated with creating an entire universe out of one speck of light. Creating the world out of a speck of light became a very real visual opening to our show as we had our two shadows appear in the darkness of the first blackout with small colored lights. As the lights grew, so did the momentum and life of each light, which then expanded into a universe of stars. As our eyes wandered from the specks of light in the sky, they were drawn into the lights given off by John's lantern in the beginning of his game of pretend at the top of the show, creating a seamless transition between the heavens and the earth. Sounds and Music: The space in which we were performing was a small, black box theatre. I knew that I wanted this to feel like a big adventure in a really small space and felt that one way we could do that would be with sounds and music. I wanted to work with a composer and sound designer who could expand the performing space in the audience's imaginations. Flying: This was one of our most challenging but rewarding areas of production. Due to the blackbox space, there wasn't any way we could attach a flying rig for our actors to be on wires. Additionally, I was keenly interested to see if we could create the sensation of flying using only our actors' bodies. I had worked a few times with Frantic Assembly practioners and was heavily inspired by their process for devising and physical storytelling. It was this style of storytelling that I felt would help the audience immerse themselves in their imaginations more fully because it could transport them back to the time in their own lives where towels could be capes and the floor could be lava. Dramaturgy: I knew we would need some additional support with our dramaturgy because we were really attempting to push the innovation of the performers for this show. Moreover, our lead dramaturg would be out for maternity leave during the production so we needed additional support. Fight Choreography: This show contains several iconic fights and since our audience was close enough to put their feet on the stage, we needed choreography that would be dazzling but safe. |