Shakespeare Abridged Design Critique

"All's well that ends" and that includes the winter drama: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. Check out my original design plan.

This was a quirky show that required an intimate interaction between actors and audience. This was accomplished by building a thrust stage layout on the stage, a unique approach unfamiliar to both. But once everyone started to relax they were able to thoroughly enjoy the bawdy humor and slapstick antics.

It was helpful that the National Art Honor Society was able to paint the backdrop flats. That saved a lot of time and provided an opportunity for them to paint on a larger scale under a tight deadline. One art student commented that if they do this again, they now have a better idea of how to coordinate and plan on a larger project.

Lighting needed to be tweaked prior to opening night. My original plan was to light from each of the four corners with two sides acting as the warm/cool front and the opposite two as backlight. But that pattern caused the audience in the wings to see the actors standing directly in front of than as backlit. 

Instead I grouped the ring of lights behind the audience into main lights, with secondary overhead and backlights coming from above the flats. This meant that actors directly in front of the seats would appear front lit but backlit from the opposite side. 

Special lights included a slight blue strobe to the cooking show scene to give the impression of an old flickering tv and rainbow pulses for the rap battle. When the actor called for house lights, all the LED pars were light plain white at maximum width. This gave a distinct flat light that illuminated both the audience and stage area equally. 

Additional light tones included yellow for readers theater candlelight, green for football, red for Macbeth and blue for Hamlet night scenes. We had around 40 light cues for a 90 minute show, but could have easily added many more once the staging was tightened up by removing unnecessary lights or repeating cues during the repeated scenes in act two.

We also underestimated the audience size and had to add two more sections of by borrowing the show choir risers. Since we had less than 30 minutes to expand seating before doors opened on the first performance, I needed to come in early on Saturday to tighten up the safety connections and add stairs.

Overall, the minimal set concept was spot on and allowed the actors to rise to the occasion. The audience seemed responsive and enjoying themselves. Moving the tech booth to stage right was helpful but it would have been better if we could have used a dedicated soundtrack instead of shuffling around YouTube ads. Stage crew and tech crew did an amazing job, running a smooth show.

Photo credit Brad Poreda