Marcus Final Design Book WLM

O MR AT H E R RESC CE T O UF S W S EE T

NEVADA CONSERVATORY THEATRE

CAST & CREW DOMINIC GRABER-PRITCHARD.......MARCUS KEVIN R FREE..................................DIRECTOR ARIES JOHNSON.......................................OHSA JOSPEH PIGEE.....................MUSIC DIRECTOR ASHLIE ELAINE CARTER.........SHAUNTA IYUN MERALD W ‘BUBBA’ KNIGHT JR..COMPOSER NYLAH DAVIS..............................................OBA CAMERON S BASS..FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER NATASHA TUZZOLINO.............SHUN/ELEGUA WHITNEY LEHN MELTZ.......SCENIC DESIGNER JATAVIUS HAYNES..........................OGUN SIZE GABRIELLE LEWIS.........COSTUME DESIGNER TRENTON MILES CARSON.......................SHUA CATHERINE M PRATT.....LIGHTING DESIGNER KION JOHNSON..................................TERRELL M SOHAA SMITH................SOUND DESIGNER CAMERON STUART BASS.........OSHOOZI SIZE SANTIAGO J SANCHEZ.......SOUND DESIGNER JALEN L MORGAN........TECHNICAL DIRECTOR ALAN J STOGIN....................STAGE MANAGER

Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet is a I also focused very heavily on negative space. powerful play written by Tarell Alvin McCraney So much of this story happens in what is unsaid that focuses on the titular character Marcus Eshu or unseen, and I wanted the set to utilize the air as he searches for answers regarding his strange around it as much as the physical structure itself. dreams and the identity he is unwilling to face. I was very interested in pictures of architecture When I first read the play, I was struck by the dream that had been destroyed in natural disasters, and like quality that the entire story has, as well as the in art of putting those destroyed biuldings back powerful moments of dreams/visions/daydreams together in new and interesting shapes. And, of that consume you as you encounter them. The very course, there was the water. The waters were first inspiration image I pulled was of a sculpture such a captivating visual in the script that I entitled “Rain” by Ukrainian artist Nazar Bilyk. I knew I wanted to incorporate real water thought that this sculpture- a nude male figure into the set if at all possible, so I standing with his face upturned to the sky, with a searched for architecture that giant glass raindrop resting on his face- was the would interact well with the perfect visual metaphor for Marcus in this story. water. Thus, I started What we see as an audience is a boy standing looking seriously at open and vulnerable, searching for answers. The stilt houses and weather is looming, and the first hint of impact boat docks. has landed squarely in his face; this is where we GET INSPIRED have frozen. We know that the raindrop is about to break, the surface tension shattering to soak the boy will happen at any second, but in that moment of just before, his view of the sky must be amplified a thousand times over,. Maybe this is the first time he can truly see it all clearly. Marcus is on a precipice, scared of what he is seeing, and searching for someone to tell him the answers he already knows.

D

FRO PAGE STA

OM E TO AGE

BUILDING A W When our fantastic director Kevin R. Free and I first The key change between the first model and the discussed the set, we agreed that we saw the set as final lay in the structure itself. While Kevin and I some sort of circular shape that channeled the idea agreed on the idea of a jagged and irregular set, of a hurricane, and Kevin wanted to ensure that he did feel that the first pass seemed too much Marcus could have some sort of high ground over like the aftermath of the hurricane, and not the the other characters. One thing that I suggested events leading up to it. I turned back to my initial was the idea of broken and jagged architecture, and research of stilt houses and boat docks, and we we discussed the idea of a sharp and harsh world remade the platforms and walkways into boat that contrasted the soft and ‘sweet’ characters dock like structures. I also wanted to incorporate within it. From there I drew on my research of the suggestion of a house, and as the rehearsal broken and reassembled destruction to imagine a process began and Kevin sought for more dynamic structure that was being swept up in a hurricane, motion onstage we added in the staircase and frozen at that point. I decided to start by and ship’s ladder as well. gathering some random materials that I broke and tore, and then built my first rough model below out of the debris.

WORLD The crowning jewel of the set was the ten foot diameter pool in its center, over which my innovative Technical Director Jalen Morgan was able to rig a custom built rain curtain. The design was for two concentric circles of rain, separately controllable, that made either a solid column of water in the center of the pool, or a three foot wide ring of rain in which an actor could stand. You can see the beginnings of this idea in my first rough rendering on the previous spread, and to have been able to carry it all the way to fruition was one of my favorite parts of this process. A great deal of collaboration, planning, and practice went into the creation and use of the rain curtain, which ran six separate times over the course of the hour and a half show. FAB COLLAB COSTUMES Our remarkable Lighting Designer Catherine Pratt Gabrielle Lewis, our incredible Costume Designer, worked with me so many times over to achieve some tackled the challenge of the water onset with a amazing effects on the set. Chief among those was a determination to make it work for her, and she did. challenge that came up very early in the process, when She decided to incorporate a hydrochromic pattern on Kevin asked me to make the set “break in a way that the costume of Oshoozi, who always appeared in the made it more beautiful.” I looked to the Japanese rain. When he first appears onstage, he is in a ghostly art style of kintsugi, and began discussions with white- but as he is drenched in rain, a brilliant scarlet Catherine and Jalen to build physical cracks into some appeared on his robes. Gabby also did a great deal of the platforms lined with LED tape, which quickly of research into adinkra symbolism for the separate spiraled into a massive beast for a short lived effect. families in the script with the hope of incorporating However, knowing that this was an important part of specific family “crests” into the costumes. When the design for myself and Kevin, Catherine continued that did not work out for her, she, Kevin, and to research options until she landed on one so simple myself discussed making them into set dressing that I would have never thought of. We ended up instead. I worked with Prop Master Jenn Holland to using a series of strategically placed lightning gobos! reimagine the crests as common household porch Catherine also arranged some beautiful backlight that decor- which you can see in the final set pictures. LIGHTINGshone through the back wall when it “broke” as well.