Part 2...The design process

I have developed a process for beginning a new project. First, there is script analysis...yes, I really do have to do that, however my analysis is different from the actor's or director's analysis because I am looking for different information. My job is to create the world around the characters and to do that, I have to uncover the tone of the story and somehow translate that into place. That takes time for the story to gel.

I read the script once and then put it away, sometimes for weeks if I can afford the time. (Too often, I am asked to do a show the week of auditions. It is hard to do something special when I get started that late.) Putting down the script after one reading allows the story to melt from the immediacy of the plot and characters into a feeling or impression. As stated previously, my job is creating the visual character for the show. I shouldn't be worried about the specifics of dialog except to capture any specific staging needs. The director and actors are responsible for the dialog and relating the characters to the audience. 

Many stage productions grow from books, movies or TV shows...and visa versa. If it was originally a piece of written literature, I read it. Authors must do the same work that I do. Through words, they have to not only expose their characters and interactions through dialog, but they must also immerse the reader into the world in which the characters live. Reading the book is very useful, even if the play isn't entirely true to it.

I often get asked if I saw the movie. Seeing the movie is the Cliff Notes of the story. I mean, come on...you get the abridged version of the story in two hours. Now maybe you can read the book in two hours, but for most of us, we take our time with the book and really crawl into the story. You don't do that with a movie. Plus, the movie is already a visual interpretation. So, it has the potential of tainting your understanding of the story. It can form preconceived ideas that may or may not fit with the play script. So, I avoid the movie until after I have a strong concept developed. Then I might turn to it for ideas on addressing details. Film art directors are usually great with the details.

Likewise, I do not try to see every other production that has ever been done until after I have my concept formed. Just because it has "always been staged this way" doesn't mean that it works for our stage, for our director's vision, etc.  

Usually after a week or two of mulling my first impressions, I have captured the tone or feeling. Now, let me explain that mulling isn't just sitting back and "sleeping on it." I actively think about the emotions that the characters go through. I close my eyes and try to picture the action really happening. I try to identify the feelings that I had as the story unfolded for me in the reading...the FIRST impression. After all, I am trying to create that visual first impression for the audience. Most of them get to experience it once. I have to instill in the audience the same feeling that I felt when I first read the material and then capture that feeling in a built world.

Often, during mulling is when the initial ideas start to pop out. I don't talk much about the project until I get past this point. For some shows, it takes a second reading and a little more mulling. Most of the time, this is to make sure I understand and am confident in my understanding of the story and its setting. Then I share my initial thoughts with the director and discuss them. Hard decisions aren't made yet. They are only staging ideas, visual concepts, etc.  

For Night of the Living Dead, this first conversation between Scott and I took place at the theater, when he was giving me an orientation of the organizations resources. Before he arrived, I spent about an hour in the theater just sitting and looking at the stage, congealing the feeling that I had gotten from the script...trying to envision how that might play on this stage.

I realized that Night of the Living Dead demanded a realistic set when I understood the physical relationship that the audience was going to have to the storytelling. Scott confirmed my feelings when he said he wanted it to feel claustrophobic. The audience needed to feel, not like they were in the auditorium or even onstage, but instead like they were in the living room with these six people, fighting to stay alive for one night.

By the time that we had finished talking that afternoon, I did a VERY crude free-hand plan on a ruled notepad for the basic layout of the set. We agreed on the direction and I moved to the next step...