It's easy to skip over the gestation period, particularly if the schedule is tight or I am handed the show and the requirements. Gestation often begins with memory of effective and perhaps inspired recent theater experiences. Going to the theater is important. It's a little expensive, but I manage to average a professional (LORT) show a month if I make a point of it. I do pay close attention to the work of the designers. It keeps me sharp about the standards of our profession, and I am always looking inside the choices that they make. It's important for me to see how the design works, which usually is unremarkable to the audience except as it experiences it.
I read a lot about a show. I keep a good personal library as a resource and I read much online. I read about the history of production and the reviews of those events. I dig into the author and sometimes other works by the author. I begin the internal and external research on the play and the author, and on the context of the play's creation. I read about the author's sources and I try to understand the play in the context of its creation as well as in the context of current times and circumstances. All of this enables me to contribute with some creative understanding in the conversation with the director about the play. To be sure, the director has deeper knowledge, but unless I am prepared, I risk having my work dictated.
Directors are allowed - even expected - to get out in front. I design more shows in a year than they direct, and their gestation period necessarily is longer. In some cases it is years, but rarely is it much less than 6 months before first rehearsal for the directors with whom I generally work. I try to connect early enough to find out when I have to be ready to talk about the show.
At some point, usually a Friday morning when I've cleared my calendar and have no pressing work responsibilities until Monday, I begin to work on the design idea. I've read the show, outlined the action, analyzed the themes and ideas of the play, and created a requirement list for the design. I usually have some direction regarding style. I even may have doodled around, but became frustrated with a lack of inspiration. It's time to look at pictures.
If I fail to invest time in looking at pictures, I'm never quite satisfied with my result. I look at lots of them. Books and clipping morgues and online collections. I have to develop a sense of the possibilities. What I look at includes, but is not limited to:
1. Other productions -- of other shows. This is particularly liberating. There are images of designs that I go back to repeatedly, because they inspire me and help me escape my easy answers. These help me envision the style and possible answers to the design challenge.
2. Books of artwork. Periods of painting and sculpture and architecture and fashion. Books of illustration and popular art. Here I find the form and shape, color, line and texture of the show.
3. Period detail. I usually find the unity of a show in the visual environment. Whenever possible, I visit a place and I take my own photos. I make use of online photographic resources, including much shared amateur photography. I also read about the place and the time of the play in whatever resources I can find.
From this research, I collect the most useful and evocative images and sketches, and share them with the director very early. I like to do this in person so I can explain the choice, but it does put the director on the spot. Suddenly she is confronted with something tangible and she knows I am reading her reaction. It often results in a bit of verbal dance. The director may try to be open to what is offered, but still must process it. It's unfair, but effective. In the end it is no different than helping an actor shape a character - a good director takes what is offered and through interaction in rehearsal leads the production into a unified intention.
After looking at a large number of images, it is time for me to sketch and thumbnail. This is the real search for the Way In. Doodles and diagrams and thumbnails. I sketch research for style and period line and detail. This can take days, and I must have a deadline to force decisions and choices.
If I'm lucky, I can get 3 or 4 ideas to show the director and costume designer. One will be my overworked original idea that is not really open for adjustment. Another will be a somewhat stripped down version that has practicality and more openness. Maybe I'll have an alternative idea as a weak second concept, and sometimes another concept that meets a strict budget limitation. Usually they are pencil sketches and diagrams, assisted with a lot of discussion and reference images. The lesser choices ofter are no more than doodles.
Meeting these criteria is never a simple task. Some matters are purely practical - how can that character get from here to there? Others may be larger and more difficult, not the least of which are my own aesthetic criteria for the design. But solving these more practical considerations is light work compared to the struggle to settle on a design aesthetic I like in the first place.
Then on to the final sketch and/or model and discussions with the shop regarding budget and timetable, trimming where necessary. The visionary design work is done. It's time to move on to the practicalities and the shop drawings. Sometimes I even get around to a final scenic sketch, but directors usually prefer the model.
That's what my design experience is like.
Scenemaker
January 21, 2011
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