Title
Undermining Fine
Production
Undermining Fine
Playwright
N/A
Production Team
Choreographers: Meredith Stapleton & Eduard Forehand
Stage Manager: Spencer Clouse
Costume Design: Meredith Stapleton, Eduard Forehand, & Juliana Waechter
Lighting Design: Will Borich
Media Design: Colin Smyth
Sound Design: Joseph Norman
Theatre
Space Place
Production Type
Class Project
Date
Spring 2019
Budget for this Design Area
$0
Comments by the Designer
A night of two MFA candidates’ thesis works, Undermining Fine is a dance concert composed of Three Completely Distinct Duets with Absolutely Nothing in Common (choreographed by Meredith Stapleton), and Undermining Process “S” (choreographed by Eduard Forehand).
Three Completely Distinct Duets with Absolutely Nothing in Common visually illustrated what it means to say that you are doing “fine”, but really you are putting up a mask of solidarity because it is ingrained in our modern society as the emotional default. In order to convey the internal emotional distress that the characters were feeling, I chose to have the key source of light come from one direction as to a utilize a heavy sense of shadow on the dancers the majority of this piece was silent and was accompanied by no music. The second duet, however, consisted of two performers dancing along to “The Limbo Song”. During this movement, I painted many saturated spinning colors from the front onto the white jumpsuits that the dancers were wearing so as to match the festive tone of the music.
Undermining Process “S” is a study into sleep deprivation and the various effects that it has on the human body. Presented as a series of seven vignettes interrupted by the song “Good Morning” by The Butterflies. I decided to create one look for each of the vignettes (co-dependency, anger, forgetfulness, obsessiveness, workaholic, anxiety, and calming) that not only conveyed the mood of each effect of sleep deprivation, but also did not clash with the color of the video being projected on the back cyclorama of the theater. I was unable to see the video content ahead of technical rehearsals, resulting in my lighting palette not being defined until three days before opening night. My accompanying radical shifts in color and texture of light created a variety of environments that were each individualistic and dynamically unique.
Overall this was a very strong show that was a great collaboration between both choreographers and myself. Both choreographers and I were able to communicate effectively so that I was able to provide ideal atmospheres that supported each of their works. The only thing that would have aided me in my design process was if I was able to meet and talk with the media designer for Undermining Process ”S”, so that we could have both agreed on the color palettes for each vignette together.
Student Type
MFA
Rights
Copyright 2019 William Borich