Educational Designs (please click on image to expand)
Into the Woods for Elon University- Elon, North Carolina​
Director: Fredrick J. Rubeck
Associate Director: Brian Kremer
Scenic Designer: Charles G. Johnson
Lighting Design: Bill Webb
Sound Designer: Sarah Adams
Puppet Design: Charles G. Johnson
The design for Into the Woods was, for me, an exploration of stories and who gets to tell them. I focused the various story lines on different cultures and different eras. Cinderella and her story was set in Russia in the late 18th century, Jack and his Mother were set in Germany in the mid
19th century, The Baker and his wife, Little Red and Rapunzel were set in Greece in the early 20th century. The Narrator was pulled from England in the early 20th century, specifically a British explore and
big game hunter of the 1920’s. The game he hunts, other people’s stories—a commentary on dominate cultures taking and telling other people’s stories.. We wrote the script all over his costume, using Frixon pens that we could iron off each night so he could write on his costume
during the performance. The Witch was a time and place of her own, but focused on the Italian renaissance. Her costume is loosely based on an Italian witch who is part of the Christmas season. She also has
the skulls of song birds as decoration. . .she keeps trying to keep beautiful things but ends up killing them.
I also took four characters on a journey to modernity. These where The Baker, Little Red, Cinderella and Jack. These characters featured elements of modern clothing (Cinderella’s "skirt" was actually very full pants) or moved towards a much more modern look. This was based on
how modern these character’s out looks were, and it allowed for progression as we moved through the stories.
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We.CAN.Together - Black History Month Dance Concert for Elon University- Elon, North Carolina​
Director: Keshia Wall
Choreographer: Maurice Watson
Lighting Design: Greg Thorn
Sound Designer: Rick Earl
This dance piece was filmed as part of our Black History Month Concert, 2021. The Choreographer for the piece, Maurice Watson, gave me the brief that he wanted to explore the idea of protests. I put together the inspiration boards you see here to begin the conversation with Maurice and to be a jumping off point. The boards have images from Historical Protests,
BLM protests, The Women’s March as well as several LGBTQ+ protests. From these I focused on the sharp contrasts in color, bold graphics and in particular the images from the Indigenous Women’s board resonated with both of us. We decided to go with start contrasting costumes (black and white) with appliqued red hands on the pieces. The dancers chose the hand prints from the pieces we built in the costume shop and then decided where on their bodies they
wanted them appliqued.
I enjoy engaging the performers in the costuming process as much as possible. In this way they were able to help tell their own story as well.
The Importance of Being Ernest for Elon University- Elon, North Carolina​
Director: Kirby Wahl
Scenic Designer: Natalie Taylor-Heart
Lighting Design: Bill Webb
Sound Designer: Michael Smith
This production was a very traditional treatment of Oscar Wilde’s comedy. We did embrace the new tradition of casting a man in the role of Lady Bracknell. We chose to set the show in the late 1890’s in that magical and whimsical time that saw the end of the staunch and proper Victorian era give way to the much more playful and frivolous Edwardian era. The color pallet matched couples up but also explored a bit of the political side of the Edwardians, played the women’s suffrage movement (Lady Bracknell was in the traditional colors of green, white and violet—Give Women the Vote).
Damn Yankees for Elon University- Elon, North Carolina​
Director: Douglas Hall
Choreography: Deb Leamy
Scenic Designer: Charles Johnson
Lighting Design: Bill Webb
Sound Designer: Tamir Eplan-Frankel
The director, Douglas Hall, at the very first production meeting asked everyone on the creative team to really “lean into” the traditional nature of the piece. He wanted us to explore the grand style of MGM musicals with their bright colors, glossy finishes and over the top character choices. He also wanted to explore the use of 1950’s magic tricks—especially when dealing with the character of Applegate.
While doing all of that we also played with gender (two of our baseball players were women who were not pants roles), gender norms (one of the couples in the first number—6 months out of every year—were composed of a wife who loved baseball and a husband who did not) and we split the role of Applegate so that there was both a male and a female Applegate. All of this allowed for a lot of fun within the design and the show was a bright and colorful romp through the 1950’s Americana.