1 Finding Freedom in the Forest: Creating Magic in the Scenic And

Finding Freedom in the Forest: Creating Magic in the

Scenic and Properties Design for a Production of

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Cade Michael Sikora, B.A.

Graduate Program in Theatre

The Ohio State University

2020

Thesis Committee

Brad Steinmetz, M.F.A., Advisor

Dan Gray, M.F.A.

Kevin McClatchy, M.F.A.

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Copyrighted by

Cade Michael Sikora

2020

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Abstract

Theatre as an art connects the text of a written play with a live audience. A designer’s role in this art is to create an environment which both supports the story and evokes the meaning of the text to the those who share it. By analyzing the contrasting relationships and their surroundings in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I created a world which was sophisticated enough to both evoke serious themes pertinent to today’s society and maintain the magic and whimsy of the original text. This thesis documents my scenic design process for this production of the Department of Theatre at

The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

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Dedication

This document is dedicated to my parents, Darla and Jack Sikora for their continuous and ever-growing support of my artistic activities and accomplishments. It is also dedicated to the memory of my Grampa Daniel Raflik, who passed away in August of 2019 just before the build process of A Midsummer Night’s Dream commenced.

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Acknowledgments

I would first like to thank my collaborators Evan Belsky, Harry Cencer, and Andrew Pla for their dedication and camaraderie, and for lighting up my world like nobody else.

Further, I extend thanks to Brad Steinmetz for his constant guidance and support on this and every undertaking in my graduate career. I thank Chad Mahan and Chris Zinkon for tirelessly working to realize my visions and for always offering solutions to the challenges brought forward. I also thank Carla Chaffin and Dan Gray for opening my eyes to my ability to utilize paint in design and for always pushing me to achieve more.

Thanks to my fellow graduate students and friends Kelsey Gallagher, Jensen Glick,

Braden Graves, William Ledbetter, Cassie Lentz, Julianne Nogar, and Meghan Stanford for their companionship, inspiration to me, and for making sure the party never stopped at

Ohio State. In addition, thanks to my friends Kelsey Hoverson, Jared Johnson, Jennifer

London, Jacoby Matott, and McKenna Willis for their encouragement, honesty, and for reminding me that we will stay forever this way.

Special thanks to my parents, Darla and Jack, and to my siblings, Colter, Quinn, and

Saige for supporting my work as it takes me further and further into the Forest.

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Vita

July 23, 1992 ...... Born in Chippewa Falls, WI

December 20, 2014 ...... B.A. Theatre Arts, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

August 15, 2017 to present ...... Graduate Theatre Assistant, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University

February, 2018 ...... Dog Act, Liz Duffy Adams Scenic Design

April, 2018 ...... Execution of Justice, Emily Mann Assistant Dramaturg

October, 2018 ...... Michael von Siebenburg Melts Through the Floorboards, Greg Kotis Scenic Design

February, 2019 ...... Her Naked Skin, Rebecca Lenkiewicz Scenic Design

November, 2019 ...... A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare Scenic Design

March, 2019 ...... Indecent, Paula Vogel Lighting Design

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Publications

Sikora, Cade M. “Of Phantoms and Princes: The Extraordinary Designs of Maria Björnson.” Theatre Design & Technology, vol. 55, no. 2, 2019, pp. 10–19.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Theatre

Studies in: Scenic Design

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Dedication ...... iii Acknowledgments...... iv Vita ...... v List of Figures ...... ix Chapter 1. Synopsis and Script Analysis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ...... 1 The Author and Origins of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ...... 1 A Brief Synopsis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ...... 2 Approach to Adapting the Text...... 6 Chapter 2. The Producing Situation ...... 9 Chapter 3. The Design Concept ...... 12 Conceptualization ...... 12 The Scenic Design ...... 14 Chapter 4. The Production Process ...... 26 The Forest Portals ...... 26 The Forest Ground Rows ...... 29 The Bower ...... 29 The Moon ...... 32 Athens ...... 34 The Rock Bridge ...... 35 The Pit Entrance and Apron Stairs...... 38 The Floor ...... 39 Properties ...... 41 Weaponry ...... 41 The Mechanicals’ Paper Goods ...... 41 vii

The Fairies’ Props ...... 42 The Play-Within-A-Play ...... 43 Furniture ...... 46 Technical Rehearsals ...... 47 Chapter 5. Evaluation...... 48 Individual Scenic Elements...... 48 Collaboration...... 51 The Process and Reflections ...... 52 Bibliography ...... 53 Appendix A. Text from Kevin McClatchy’s Director’s Statement ...... 54 Appendix B. Design Material ...... 66 Appendix C. Final Properties List ...... 105 Appendix D. Automation Tracking ...... 107 Appendix E. Production Photos ...... 108

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Veranda de la Salle by Jacques Grüber in Nancy, France ...... 15 Figure 2. Wisteria Table Lamp, by Louis Comfort Tiffany ...... 17 Figure 3. Loïe Fuller, by Francois-Raoul Larche ...... 18 Figure 4. A stained glass window featuring a Mackintosh Rose from House for an Art Lover by Charles Rennie Mackintosh ...... 20 Figure 5 The Ballroom set from The Great Gatsby, Production Design by Catherine Martin ...... 21 Figure 6. Autumn Landscape Window, attributed to Agnes F. Northrop for Tiffany Studios ...... 37 Figure 7. Window from Rochroane Castle, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, Manufactured by Tiffany Studios ...... 40 Figure 8. Drafting Plate S1 – Ground Plan ...... 67 Figure 9. Drafting Plate S2 – Centerline Section ...... 68 Figure 10. Drafting Plate S3 – False Proscenium ...... 69 Figure 11. Drafting Plate S4 – Apron and Pit Entrance ...... 70 Figure 12. Drafting Plate S5 – Portal 1 ...... 71 Figure 13. Drafting Plate S6 – Portal 2 ...... 72 Figure 14. Drafting Plate S7 – Portal 3 ...... 73 Figure 15. Drafting Plate S8 – Ground Row...... 74 Figure 16. Drafting Plate S9 – Bower ...... 75 Figure 17. Drafting Plate S10 – Bower flat ...... 76 Figure 18. Drafting Plate S11 – Bower trunk ...... 77 Figure 19. Drafting Plate S12 – Bower Lily Pads ...... 78 Figure 20. Drafting Plate S13 – Moon ...... 79 Figure 21. Drafting Plate S14 – Ramp ...... 80 Figure 22. Drafting Plate S15 – Ramp Details ...... 81 Figure 23. Drafting Plate S16 – Athens ...... 82 Figure 24. Drafting Plate S17 – Athens Sections ...... 83 Figure 25. Drafting Plate S18 – Athens Windows ...... 84 Figure 26. Drafting Plate S19 – Athens Trim ...... 85 Figure 27. Drafting Plate S20 – Mechanicals Stage ...... 86 Figure 28. Drafting Plate ZX –Revised Ramp Flats ...... 87 Figure 29. Final Design Rendering – Unit Set ...... 88 Figure 30. Final Design Rendering – Athens...... 89 Figure 31. Final Design Rendering – Bower ...... 90 Figure 32. Final Design Rendering – Moon Rising ...... 91 ix

Figure 33. Final Design Rendering – Moon in Final Position ...... 92 Figure 34. Paint Elevation – Portal 1 ...... 93 Figure 35. Paint Elevation – Portal 2 ...... 94 Figure 36. Paint Elevation – Portal 3 ...... 95 Figure 37. Paint Elevation – Stage Right Ground Row ...... 96 Figure 38. Paint Elevation – Center Stage Ground Row ...... 96 Figure 39. Paint Elevation – Stage Left Ground Row ...... 97 Figure 40. Paint Elevation – Moon ...... 97 Figure 41. Paint Elevation – The Bower ...... 98 Figure 42. Paint Elevation – Fallen Tree Ramp ...... 99 Figure 43. Paint Elevation – Rock Bridge ...... 100 Figure 44. Paint Elevation – Athens ...... 101 Figure 45. Digital Model – Athens ...... 102 Figure 46. Digital Model – Forest and Bower ...... 103 Figure 47. Digital Model – Forest and Bower with Moon ...... 104 Figure 48. Final Properties List ...... 106 Figure 49. Automation Tracking...... 107 Figure 50. Production Photo – The Prologue Battle. Photo by Jodi Miller...... 109 Figure 51. Production Photo – The Opening Scene At Athens. Photo by Jodi Miller. .. 110 Figure 52. Production Photo – The Mechanicals Quarrel at the Tavern. Photo by Jodi Miller...... 111 Figure 53. Production Photo – The First Forest Scene. Photo by Jodi Miller...... 112 Figure 54. Production Photo – Lovers In the Forest. Photo by Cade M. Sikora...... 113 Figure 55. Production Photo – The Fairies Sing Titania to Sleep. Photo by Cade M. Sikora...... 114 Figure 56. Production Photo – Oberon Moves the Moon. Photo by Jodi Miller...... 115 Figure 57. Production Photo – Oberon’s Fairies Ensnare Demetrius. Photo by Cade M. Sikora...... 116 Figure 58. Production Photo – The Next Morning. Photo by Cade M. Sikora...... 117 Figure 59. Production Photo – Pyramus and Thisbe. Photo by Jodi Miller...... 118 Figure 60. Production Photo – The Puck’s Final Monologue. Photo by Jodi Miller. .... 119

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Chapter 1. Synopsis and Script Analysis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is popular for the witty and mischievous nature of the text, its fantastic and magical setting, and its famously happy ending. Beyond this fun and whimsical façade, however, sits a text suggesting all the violence, sexism, racism, and aggression of the Elizabethan era woven into the intricacies of a Shakespearean text. The contrasts and contradictions of this complicated literary work were the foundation of The Ohio State University’s 2019 production of A

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Author and Origins of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare is considered one of the greatest writers of the English language. His extant works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and a range of other poetry.

Leon Craig asserts in his 2003 book Of Philosophers and Kings: Political Philosophy in

Shakespeare's Macbeth and King Lear that Shakespeare’s plays are and have been performed more than any other playwright’s since they were penned in the late 1500s and early 1600s (Craig 3). His influence on the English language is unparalleled and many words, phrases, and linguistic conventions which he coined are still with us today.

Unlike many of Shakespeare’s works, there are no clear written sources for the complicated plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or apparent reasons why it was written.

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James L. Calderwood, in his 1992 analysis of the play, simply titled A Midsummer

Night’s Dream, provides a detailed hypothesis for the origins of the many facets in A

Midsummer Night’s Dream. Calderwood contends that portions of the plot came from a myriad of texts Shakespeare may have been familiar with. These texts include Chaucer’s

The Knight’s Tale, Amyot’s French translation of Plutarch’s Lives, and Apuleius’s The

Golden Ass, among others (Calderwood xvii-xviii). Amusingly, the script refers specifically to the tragic love story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a product of Ovid’s

Metamorphoses. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is considered to be the inspiration for

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet which was written at around the same time as A

Midsummer Night’s Dream (“Dates and Sources”). However, not one of these sources can claim to be the singular basis of Shakespeare’s comedy.

A Brief Synopsis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Most simply put, the play contains four intersecting plotlines: the forthcoming wedding of Theseus, the Duke Athens, to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons; the complicated love affairs of the Athenians Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius; the preparation of a play by a group of local tradesmen, called the Mechanicals; and a domestic quarrel between the Queen and King of the Fairies, Titania and Oberon. Each of the latter three plots is connected by the marriage of Theseus to Hippolyta under the light of the full moon in Athens, Greece.

The first scene establishes the mythological connection and a mood of subjugation with Theseus telling Hippolyta his intentions for marriage. Hippolyta rebuffs

2 him promptly. This opening scene sets a jarring tone for a comedy. According to Michael

Pennington in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A User’s Guide, “Elizabethans in general were conditioned to see Amazons as barbaric and their female self-government as a bellicose thing, to be subjected at length to male structures” (Pennington 6). Theseus’s behavior smacks of this chauvinism as he boasts of his victory and upcoming marriage to the largely indifferent Hippolyta.

Hermia and Lysander are in love but Hermia's wealthy father, Egeus, has already promised Hermia to Demetrius, who quickly ends his relationship with Helena. The lovers go to the palace, where Duke Theseus rules in favor of Egeus and gives Hermia the choice to accept the marriage to Demetrius, become a nun, or be executed. Theseus’s authoritative attitude sets the wheels of the play in motion as his refusal of Hermia’s wishes prompts Hermia and Lysander to disappear into the forest by night. However, they do not leave until after Hermia confides their journey to Helena and asks her not to expose them. Immediately, Helena tells Demetrius, Demetrius follows Hermia and

Lysander, and Helena follows Demetrius. Everyone becomes hopelessly and hilariously lost in the same forest.

The Mechanicals are producing a play which they intend to perform at the aforementioned wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. Leading the troupe is Peter Quince, humorously shown up at every turn by his compatriot, Nick Bottom. As Quince prepares the men of the troupe for the play, Bottom interjects with unwelcome suggestions for improvement, most of which involve giving Bottom more lines. The Mechanicals agree

3 to rehearse their play out of town so as to avoid the swarms of publicity they believe they will garner.

In the meantime, Oberon, King of the Fairies, is fighting with his wife, Titania.

She is keeping a changeling boy, the product of one of her ladies-in-waiting, whom

Oberon desires to be his henchman. Oberon decides that he will prank Titania by way of a potion which will make her fall in love with the first being she sees. Oberon figures that he can snatch the boy while she is distracted by her new love and ridicule her for it when he restores her.

After overhearing Demetrius rebuff Helena, Oberon also sends his servant Puck, the forest’s resident mischief-maker. Oberon instructs Puck to give the very same love potion to a young Athenian, intending that Demetrius should fall in love with his pursuer,

Helena. Unfortunately, Puck targets Lysander and not Demetrius, and the woman he sees first is Helena, not Hermia. Hermia wakes to discover that her admirer is now in love with her best friend.

Puck finds the Mechanicals rehearsing their play. Upon identifying Bottom as the buffoon that he is, Puck alters Bottom’s head to resemble that of an ass. The rest of the

Mechanicals are shocked and terrified, ultimately abandoning their friend whom they no longer recognize. As Bottom wonders the woods, he stumbles upon a waking Titania who, under the influence of the love potion, immediately lusts after him and welcomes him to her bower.

Oberon discovers that the wrong Athenian man was given the potion and tries to fix the situation by giving the potion to the correct target, Demetrius. This backfires and

4 results in both of Hermia's former suitors fighting over Helena. While both men fight over Helena, they are nasty to Hermia, making deliberate racist jokes about her darker complexion. Helena and Hermia also exchange spars over the others appearance.

Meanwhile, Titania pines for the man with the donkey head. Oberon is frustrated at the fiasco of his machinations. Hilarious chaos ensues.

In the grand tradition of Shakespearean comedy, all gets righted in the end. The lovers lose themselves in the woods again, each falling down next to the one they are meant to love. Oberon and Puck administer an antidote to both of the men and to Titania, restoring their sensibilities, and transform Bottom to his original state. Theseus and his entourage discover the lovers in the woods. Demetrius announces to Egeus that he no longer loves Hermia, but has restored his love of Helena. The lovers cannot make sense of what they think they remember from the night before and ponder these happenings.

Near Athens, the tradesmen are dismayed at the loss of their friend Bottom when suddenly he appears as a man. They resolve that they will perform their play at the

Duke’s wedding as arranged. The wedding has grown, however, to include not just

Hippolyta and Theseus, but Hermia and Lysander, as well as Helena and Demetrius. At the wedding, the Mechanicals perform their riotously terrible play, Pyramus and Thisbe, which the Athenians love to hate. The world of the Athenians disappears and Oberon and

Titania are revealed to be happily together again. Puck returns to reassure the audience that everything is on the level and that, if the audience is unsatisfied with the turn of events, they too can regard it as a dream.

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In spite of a volatile set-up, everyone is happy. Notions of violence, forced marriages, racism, and sexism are forgotten and love prevails. The disparaging remarks

Demetrius and Lysander made toward Hermia are overlooked, as are the catty comments

Hermia has made about Helena. Even Hippolyta has acquiesced to her marriage with

Theseus. How then, to make such a conflicting, and occasionally problematic, text palatable to a contemporary audience? This was the challenge presented to this creative team, starting with an adaptation of the text.

Approach to Adapting the Text

The Department of Theatre chose to produce A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the 2019-2020 season for a number of reasons. The most prominent was to fit the needs of the M.F.A. acting students whose program required a classical text for the entire cohort of nine to participate in. A Midsummer Night’s Dream also has a large cast, which offered an opportunity for undergraduate actors to work with graduate actors outside of the classroom. A fantastical, Shakespearean text also provided many challenges and opportunities for research and design for the M.F.A. designers.

Our production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was an adaptation of the First

Folio version of the script. The adaptation was a collaborative effort between director

Kevin McClatchy, assistant director Nathan Simms, and dramaturg Anne Peterson and was composed primarily in the summer of 2019. These collaborators wanted to allow the creative team to explore Shakespeare’s work and make it more accessible to our audience by shortening and simplifying the text.

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Because work on the adaptation couldn’t begin until the summer, the design concepts, and indeed the designs themselves were largely complete before the adapted script was. Consequently, the finished script was heavily informed by the design choices established in the preproduction period, which in turn, had been informed by

McClatchy’s initial director’s statement, of March 19, 2019.

McClatchy, Simms, and Peterson sought to accomplish many different objectives in adapting the script for a modern audience. The adapters kept all characters and major plot points while steering the text to a more inclusive narrative, specifically as it related to the treatment and ultimate empowerment of women, but also as it related to race. They also wanted to clear up some of the vagaries present in Shakespeare’s text; namely establishing a motive for Egeus’s desire for Hermia to marry Demetrius.

McClatchy, Simms, and Peterson trimmed away much of the script and added many stage directions and movement pieces to illustrate these points. One of these additions was a movement-based prologue depicting the battle where Theseus, accompanied by Egeus and Demetrius, defeated and won Hippolyta. A confrontation between Oberon’s fairies and Titania’s fairies illustrated the danger of the characters’ situation.

This adapted script, henceforth referred to as Midsummer, was set in Greece, circa the mid-1920s. In this post-war Greece, Theseus had fought in a war, a proxy of World

War One, alongside Egeus and Demetrius. Upon winning the war, he took Hippolyta as his prize. Egeus’s devotion to Demetrius was now explained by their having fought together and Theseus’s defense of the laws of Athens was less about a man needing to

7 govern the life of a woman for the sake of it and more about his position and his devotion to comrades in arms. The rest of the play followed much as Shakespeare’s original did.

The only notable change in dialogue was that Peter Quince was played by a woman, a trait noted by the slightest alternation of the existing text. The staging included an additional dance segment near the finale and a moment when Hippolyta extends a hand to

Theseus, indicating her acceptance of him.

The adapters sought to emphasize many dialectic tensions which were maintained in the adaptation. Namely, the tensions between reality and fantasy, freedom and oppression, sanity and madness, upper classes and lower classes, and of course that of night and day. The language, both textual and visual, supporting these contrasts became major forces guiding the production.

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Chapter 2. The Producing Situation

The production process for A Midsummer Night’s Dream began on March 19,

2019 when Director Kevin McClatchy’s released his director’s statement to the design team (see Appendix A). I designed the scenery for this production as my thesis project in my Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre program at Ohio State. I presented the final scenic design on May 6. Painting and construction of the scenery began August 26 and continued for 10 weeks after. Finally, A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened on November

15 and closed on November 22 after seven performances.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed in the Thurber Theatre, the

Department of Theatre’s large proscenium venue which originally opened in 1972. This venue seats approximately 600 people in a continental seating1 arrangement with a single seating level and no balconies. The proscenium arch measures 35’-0” wide and approximately 21’-0” tall. In its standard configuration, the stage is 49’-0” deep. This includes an 8’-0” orchestra pit which once was able to be lowered and raised by a hydraulic lift. The downstage edge of the apron extends 11’-0” from the upstage side of the proscenium arch.

The wing space of the Thurber varies and is approximately 17’-0” on stage right and just over 30-0” on stage left. This stage left space is frequently used as a place to store scenic elements and props. Above the stage is a rigging system consisting of 35 battens used to raise and lower scenery. A trap room exists under the stage which has

1 continental seating: a seating arrangement with access aisles only at the ends of the seating rows 9 access to the orchestra pit. Preexisting circumstances dictated that the orchestra pit would have to be kept at its lowest position, roughly 10’-0” below the stage level.

The scenic studio, where the scenic elements are built, is a 1,500 square foot space adjoining the stage left area of the theatre. Owing to the expansive nature of the scenic design and the spatial limitations of the scenic studio, painting and some construction occurred on stage. In the fall semester of 2019, the scenic studio was staffed by one full-time scenic studio manager, one full-time resident technical director, four part-time graduate students, one scenic charge artist, one properties work-study student, thirteen undergraduate students, and two members of Ohio State’s initiative for older students, referred to as Program 60.

The Department’s scenic resources were divided among three shows during the fall semester of 2019: Romeo and Juliet, the department’s touring show, and Bonnets performed in the Roy Bowen Theatre. Both of these productions opened before

Midsummer. The scenic budget for Midsummer was $10,000 and the properties budget was $1,000.

The production team was composed of many people from a variety of backgrounds. Midsummer was directed and adapted by Kevin McClatchy with Ben Fisher and Nathan Simms acting as assistant directors. The costume design was created by

Cynthia B. Overton, the lighting design by Andrew Pla with assistance from Braden

Graves, and the sound design was done by Lee Williams. This production was somewhat unique in that the designers came from many different levels of academic experience:

Overton and I were Masters of Fine Arts students working on this show as our thesis

10 production, Graves was in his first year of the M.F.A. design program, Pla was in his fourth year of his undergraduate career, and Williams was a member of Program 60.

Beyond the immediate design team, there were many others whose work was instrumental in creating this production. Harrison Cencer and Evan Belsky worked with me in the design and production process. Cencer served as the assistant scenic designer and Evan Belsky as the properties master. Leah Kessler was the production stage manager and Emily Pickens and Sam Wilkinson were assistant stage managers.

Additional support for the scenic and props design came from Chad Mahan, scenic studio manager and production technical director; Chris Zinkon, automation specialist; Carla

Chaffin, scenic charge artist; Brad Steinmetz, scenic and properties design advisor and

Dan Gray, painting advisor.

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Chapter 3. The Design Concept

Conceptualization

Director Kevin McClatchy’s Director’s Statement, issued to the design team on

March 19, 2019, laid the foundation for this production. Midsummer would emphasize the beauty, rhythm and clarity of the language. Before being at all prescriptive about what he felt needed to be on stage, McClatchy identified a number of dialectic tensions which he felt were important to this production. Further, McClatchy knew that there were elements of the script which needed to be represented scenographically to emphasize these tensions.

Shakespeare’s texts usually lack detail about the environment and setting. It was never McClatchy’s intention for us to present the show as an Elizabethan comedy, but he was also wary of setting the play too close to our contemporary world. Certain mechanics of the script, specifically the ideas of arranged marriages, no longer resonate in the

Western world as they did in ages past. However, the challenge of evoking a previous time period was to avoid what McClatchy called “shoehorning” or compromising the production for the sake of being clever. We did not want to create a period piece with such exactitude that we lost the magic and fun of the script in the literal representation of an era.

McClatchy identified the 1920s as a time of great social change and that those social shifts might act as an impetus to explore the dialectic tensions we were examining. 12

The 1920s were also appealing to McClatchy because he felt that we could suggest that

Theseus, Egeus, and Demetrius had fought together in the First World War. This would provide a suitable reason for Egeus’s preference for Demetrius over Lysander as a suitor for his daughter Hermia. Setting the production 100 years in the past could also explain a world that included arranged marriages.

At an early meeting between McClatchy, Overton, Belsky, and myself, we spoke of creating a world that had to be elegant, whimsical, magical, transformative, sensual, and dark in order to underscore the themes and ideas we were taking from the text.

Understanding this as a starting point, Overton and I felt that setting our Midsummer in a fantastic interpretation of the 1920s meant that we could rely on the art styles of the period, namely Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and possibly Surrealism, to create different, heightened worlds for the Athenians, the Mechanicals, and the forest-dwelling fairies.

Some of this was suggested by McClatchy in his initial statement.

Discussions with McClatchy exposed some specific details about design needs and their importance to the production. We discussed four main elements which would become the foundation of the complete design: the Forest, Athens, the Bower, and the

Moon. The Forest had to be full and voluminous, possibly even growing out of the stage and encroaching on the audience. The palace at Athens needed to be seen as militarist and clearly out-of-place within the Forest. The Athenians, led by Theseus, were trampling on this forest territory in war. McClatchy thought of the Bower where Titania sleeps and seduces Bottom as a representation of Titania’s power and her stake in the story. There was some initial discussion about whether the Moon should be seen or merely referred to

13 and it was decided early on that the Moon should be seen as Oberon’s physical counterpart to the magic of Titania’s Bower.

The Scenic Design

From the beginning, I thought of the Forest as the anchor around which the story took place. Everything happens in relation to the Forest and all of the characters end up there at one point or another. In keeping with McClatchy’s dialectic tensions, I also understood the Forest as the antithesis to Athens. It was the place where people went to be free of their inhibitions and subjugation.

As I began to think about this environment, I turned to artists of the Art Nouveau style. Art Nouveau, popular around the turn of the last century, manifests itself in many artistic forms including sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, and graphics. Works of

Art Nouveau, usually inspired by and depicting natural elements like trees and flowers, often possess a sensuality. Nude and semi-nude figures intermingled with nature are not uncommon in works of this style. Additionally, Art Nouveau works often contain with line-work full of curves and whiplashes. In her essay for the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, Cybele Gontar describes the style: “The unfolding of Art Nouveau’s flowing line may be understood as a metaphor for the freedom and release sought by its practitioners and admirers from the weight of artistic tradition and critical expectations” (Gontar). This artistic style was perfect for the Forest.

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Figure 1. Veranda de la Salle by Jacques Grüber in Nancy, France

Jacques Grüber’s Veranda de la Salle (see Figure 1), a stained glass window finished in 1904 became the initial inspiration for the Forest. I found Grüber’s work to be very evocative of the overgrown, beautifully saturated, and rich world the Forest wanted to be. The window depicts trees with leaves which appear to cascade up and down, creating a canopy which both frames the image and keeps the eye moving around and around. The bottom of the window is populated with a variety of different flowers in colors which pop out from the green leaves and the blue sky. Nestled in the trees are doves and a peacock. The colors are rich and saturated and the detail is exquisite. I was also interested in the transformative quality light would have on elements painted to

15 resemble stained glass. This supported the idea that the Forest was a place full of surprises and double meanings. This was the magical, unpredictable world that we wanted to evoke.

To create the Forest, I worked with the idea of creating painted portals, an arrangement of scenic elements forming an arch upstage of the proscenium arch, in the style of Grüber’s work. These could be painted with translucent sections, allowing light to filter in from the back like a stained glass window. I was aware that making every inch of every portal translucent was impractical and would not create the feeling I wanted.

Therefore, I had to be very intentional about which parts of these elements would allow light through them. To that end, I began thinking of the flowers as translucent, allowing them to appear to react to any magic created on stage.

To achieve Titania’s Bower, the most important specific element of the Forest, I continued to research the Art Nouveau movement. Stained glass lamps created by Louis

Comfort Tiffany around the turn of the century depicting fruit and flowering trees were the ideal subject. A lamp from 1902 (see Figure 2) depicting a wisteria tree with its buds flowing down became the basis for the top of Titania’s Bower, called the Bower flat in my materials. The colors and overall style were similar to Grüber’s works, but the lampshade was distinct in its placement of glass panes and tighter color palette of blues, greens, and purples. The trunk of the Bower, however, was inspired by bronze and brass statues from the early 1900s depicting women in classical attire as forest nymphs. These statues were sensual with attire on the women often scanty and clingy if it existed at all, and women frequently carrying leaves or garlands. I looked at many statues while

16 researching, and came to model the Bower trunk after Francois-Raoul Larche’s Loïe

Fuller (see Figure 3). The combination of the fleshly, feminine figurine with the delicate and beautiful lampshade made the perfect physical manifestation of Titania’s character, bearing, and magic in the forest.

Figure 2. Wisteria Table Lamp, by Louis Comfort Tiffany 17

Figure 3. Loïe Fuller, by Francois-Raoul Larche 18

To create more opportunity for movement through the space I devised additional scenic elements. These included a large onstage ramp designed to look like a fallen tree with fungi growing on it. The fungi would serve as steps for performers to climb and reach the tree. I added an entrance for the fairies at the front of the apron at the audience level. I also envisioned overgrowth which crept out from behind the proscenium and into the auditorium.

I established the visual language for the Forest through Art Nouveau-styled stained glass. The Moon followed suit and was taken from various interpretations of the

Mackintosh Rose (see Figure 4), a motif found in the works of Charles Rennie

Mackintosh. Mackintosh’s use of long lines and subtle curves distinguishes his nature- based work is distinct from that of Grüber and Tiffany’. For our production, the moon is the manifestation of Oberon’s power and the counterpart to Titania’s Bower. The simple geometry of several crescents wrapped inside a large circle indicated that the Moon was counter to the intricate Bower while its appearance of stained glass showed that it was still a part of this realm. I was also inspired by turn-of-the-last-century graphics depicting women sitting in or standing on the Moon to integrate this human/lunar interaction for

Puck or Oberon. I considered devising ways in which a performer could stand inside the

Moon, but this quickly changed so that the entire Moon could be a solid disk of light.

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Figure 4. A stained glass window featuring a Mackintosh Rose from House for an Art Lover by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

To counter these intricacies and saturated color in the Forest, I turned to Athens.

The idea that Athens was heavy and obtuse to this natural world was important to the concept. If using the Art Nouveau style in the Forest was indicative of the freedom characters could feel there, then using the rigid shapes and lines of the Art Deco style for

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Athens felt like the perfect contrast. In addition to being an artistic staple of the 1920s,

Art Deco architecture features many classical motifs, which proved a clever way to evoke

Greece without being overly obvious or particular. Art Deco also puts an emphasis on streamlined geometric shapes and angles, in contrast to the Art Nouveau’s flowing lines and natural forms. Ultimately, Athens was inspired by Catherine Martin’s designs for Jay

Gatsby’s mansion in Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby (2013) which features huge stone columns and large windows (see Figure 5). Architectural motifs found in the Chrysler

Building (1928) in New York City also proved helpful in creating a world which felt sharp and aggressive. To further suggest the Grecian connection, I added a Greek key to the wainscoting.

Figure 5 The Ballroom set from The Great Gatsby, Production Design by Catherine Martin

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I decided that Athens would have a distinctly boxy and three-dimensional look in contrast to the Forest. This would counter the illustrative quality of the flowers and leaves or the sculptural qualities of the Bower. To contrast the Moon, I added large, frosted windows with angular ironwork arranged to suggest the rays of the sun and centered on a set of double doors in the bottom center of the wall.

Scenic movement and automation proved significant at this stage of my design process. Mahan, Zinkon, and I met to discuss the onstage movement of scenic pieces and how that might be accomplished. The Forest would be stationary, but Athens, the Bower, and the Moon had to move on and off stage to suggest changes in location and the passing of time. I understood that all scenic movements would be accomplished through automated cues controlled by a computer offstage.

The production needed Athens to aggress on stage after the battle between the

Athenians and the Amazonians as a visual representation of the Athenian conquest. When

Athens left, it needed to leave no trace in the Forest. Initial sketches for Athens suggested that it would be very large and enter as multiple wall units. My intention was that it fly in and out from above. Mahan and Zinkon suggested that it be automated to ensure these moves happened with precision and consistency. Athens and the Bower occupied some of the same space on stage and would never appear together. Mahan and I discussed the possibility of moving the Bower flat and trunk together, but this was deemed impractical owing to spatial limitations. The trunk would enter on the floor as a rolling unit while the flat would fly in from above. The Moon would arc across the night sky at varying speeds, telling the audience of time’s passing and the magic wielded by the fairies. These

22 movements were more complicated as they were not just vertical or horizontal movements, but a series of diagonals. Mahan and Zinkon agreed that automating this unit was the surest way to achieve the correct movements.

On April 15, I presented a preliminary design to the director and production team.

Pla was excited at the opportunity to use light in this exciting and unconventional way.

He and I agreed to the need to be judicious in the placement and number of translucent areas but were excited for the potential possibilities. Pla expanded on the idea to light the scenery in unusual ways by suggesting we integrate LED tape into the roots and solid elements of the set, though we agreed that the idea needed further consideration before we committed to it.

Early concerns about the preliminary design included my desire to connect my overgrowing foliage at the apron with the foliage overhead with a false proscenium. In many ways, the overgrowing foliage itself, which stretched out into the downstage wings of the theatre, felt like it may be distracting from the stage. Also, the Athens structure, which included five separate and overlapping walls would be needlessly costly and difficult to coordinate in the way I intended.

As I refined the designs, I began to simplify the apron. I cut down on the illustrated foliage and vines which reached up into the portals and replaced them with two sculptural trees which mimicked the Bower, but in a much more elongated manner. Their roots stretched out along the floor and crept along the apron, replacing the foliage I had originally envisioned. I committed to making the Moon a solid piece resembling the

Mackintosh rose which could be entirely lit from within. The last major change came

23 with Athens. Athens was condensed to one, large wall unit which stretched the breadth of the stage and covered up almost all of the Forest when it was in.

Owing to the complicated and voluminous nature of the paint treatments I was pursuing, I made arrangements with Mahan to reschedule the deadlines of my paint elevations2 under the condition that I check-in over the summer with Mahan and

Steinmetz regarding my progress in preparation for the fall semester. Mahan and Zinkon also budgeted to hire Chaffin as a paint charge for this show and to mentor me in my painting process.

On May 6, I presented the final designs to the director and Production team. The finished design included: a new apron with a fairy entrance, stairs from the audience level to the stage level, trees reaching from the stage level to the top of the proscenium, three translucent portals to recreate the feeling of Grüber’s forest, three opaque ground row units for the far upstage area to hide lighting fixtures and to create more depth, Titania’s

Bower based on the Tiffany lamp and Art Nouveau statues, the Moon taken from the

Mackintosh Rose which would arc across the stage, the ramp unit in the form a tree with branches and fungi splayed out on the ground for actors to climb, and a large, flying wall for the palace at Athens with five windows and a set of double doors. The original design also included a satin black floor treatment. A cyclorama3 far upstage would be lit up like the sky during scenes in Athens and would appear black for scenes set in the Forest. This would be accomplished with a black scrim downstage of the cyc and upstage of the

2 paint elevation: a scale rendering of a scenic element displaying the intended paint treatment 3 cyclorama: a large curtain or wall positioned far upstage which is often lit to resemble a sky and create depth onstage 24 ground rows. The design was communicated through a series of storyboards and drafting plates (see Appendix B). I redesigned the ramp to resemble a natural rock bridge and changed the floor’s paint treatment later in the process.

I worked on paint elevations over the summer and completed them upon returning to Ohio State in August (see Appendix B). By this time, McClatchy, Sims, and Peterson had released their working adaptation of the show. Distilled to just over 70 pages, the script kept the same trajectory and sequence of the original. Fortunately for me, this meant that my storyboard sequences depicting Athens and the Forest were still largely accurate, though the team made discoveries in the rehearsal and the production process that would lead us to alter them later.

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Chapter 4. The Production Process

This chapter recounts the production process of The Ohio State University

Department of Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by examining the development, construction, and execution of each scenic element. It also includes information about the creation and procurement of the properties. The completed scenic design included the three cut portals and three ground row units which created the Forest, one painted flat and one sculpted trunk which created the Bower, one Moon, a large flying flat for Athens, a ramp for the rock bridge, the pit entrance in the apron with adjacent stairs leading from the stage, and the painted floor of the space.

The Forest Portals

The largest and most prominent elements of the scenic design were the three translucent Forest portals. These portals ranged in overall size from 42’ x 26’ to 48’ x 26’ and each had a large open portion cut out of the center. Instead of ordering large, seamless muslin drops, the more economic and efficient option was to order muslin fabric of standard sizes sewn together to the correct size and general shape. Then, we would paint them according to the design and cut away any excess. The muslin for the portals arrived in late August. We used a medium-weight muslin to preserve the transparency

26 needed to create the stained glass effect. Each portal was scheduled to take one week to lay out and paint, starting on August 26.

In mid-August, I gave the paint renderings to Steinmetz who, along with Chaffin, created a list of scenic paints of the right colors and amounts to produce the show and ordered them. While we waited for the paint to arrive, Chaffin and I began the process of laying out the first portal to paint, the most upstage of the portals. Owing to spatial limitations, we painted one portal at a time. This involved laying out the muslin to its full size, stapling it to the floor of the Thurber theatre, and treating it was a mixture of starch and hot water. This is called “sizing” and is done to stretch the drop tight, prevent the muslin of the portal or drop from absorbing excessive amounts of paint and, therefore, from losing translucency. This keeps the weight of the element to a minimum and maintains more vibrant colors. I had never worked on a design involving so much paint and Chaffin guided my work throughout each of these steps.

The paint arrived on August 26, and Chaffin and I began mixing colors. We mixed a dozen colors for the portals and had to make distinctions between colors which would appear opaque and colors which would appear as translucent. In preparation for painting, we chalked a grid on the portal which corresponded to a grid on the paint elevation of the portal. This allowed me to roughly indicate where translucent areas would go. Chaffin and I then painted the rest of the portal a dark green base to ensure that these areas did not allow light to pass through them when they were backlit.

Once this base coat dried, I chalked in guidelines for Chaffin and I to paint from.

These lines indicated the major sections of the portals and areas we would paint in

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“stained glass leading” to create the stained glass aesthetic. Broadly speaking, opaque areas were painted first and translucent areas painted later. Once the portal was painted to satisfaction, the staples holding it to the floor were removed and I cut away the interior edge of the muslin to match the shape I indicated in my renderings. The portal was then tied to the appropriate batten and flown out overhead.

Unfortunately, each portal took about a week and a half to complete, longer than we anticipated. After the first portal was painted and up in the air, its leafy edges began to curl and deform. We attributed this to moisture and began experimenting with ways to combat this. After much experimentation, we began gluing wooden stir sticks and narrow scraps of lumber across the backs of the portals and metal rods along the edges to keep the portals from wrinkling and warping.

With each day, the portals wrinkled and sagged differently. Mahan and I experimented with a number of different ways to control that. Near the bottoms of the portals, we glued more stir sticks to create spines and rigid areas, forcing the portals to hold their shape. Chaffin also came in to offer her expert opinion and suggested that spraying the portals with warm water might force them to re-stretch. By first dress, it was apparent that spraying the portals only caused them to wrinkle differently. Mahan and I continued our methods of attaching small pieces of wood to the backs of the portals with glue and Velcro to flatten out wrinkles. This proved to be successful almost everywhere we applied it.

During a technical rehearsal, a performer ran into a portal in the dark at high speed. This left an 8” tear partially through a translucent area. I fixed this the next day by

28 sewing a patch of lightweight muslin behind the tear, gluing it down, and painting out the exposed muslin to match the already painted muslin.

The Forest Ground Rows

The three ground row units were designed to complete the unit set, mask off any upstage movement of the Moon, and provide opportunity for actor movement upstage of the set. Originally these were meant to have the same translucent qualities as the portals and offer Pla an opportunity to light them from behind. I realized early in the build process that this was unnecessary because so much of these units would be obstructed by other scenic elements. I changed the design to omit the translucent areas.

The Bower

Titania’s Bower was designed in two sections: the trunk and the flat. The flat, being a rigid-framed, translucent fabric unit, was started first in early September alongside the portals. The trajectory for the Bower flat was very similar to that of the portals but on a noticeably smaller scale and without having to put down a base coat to block light. The Bower flat measured roughly 14’ x 11’ and was almost entirely translucent. To allow maximum light through the back, a light-weight muslin was chosen for this piece. In early September, I sized the muslin and added a very faint grid from which I would rough in the overall shape of the Bower flat. To preserve translucency, I was very intentional about keeping my chalk markings light. I broke the muslin down into three primary sections which would be green, blue, and violet. From there, I added

29 thin washes of these colors. Cencer was also actively involved in painting the Bower flat.

After base washes were applied, Cencer and I chalked out the stained glass leading based on the paint elevation. Once these were in place, Cencer and I began applying additional color to recreate individual panes of glass. This was a long process as the paint was very thin and at times it was difficult to judge how much paint one was applying. After this had dried, we added a layer of opaque paint for the stained glass leading lines.

In order to create a rigid top, the muslin for the Bower flat was attached to a long piece of square tube steel bent to match the curve of the Bower flat. We sent the steel through a metal roller a number of times until the arc was close to the correct size.

Because it is very difficult to be precise when bending steel, I was sure to paint beyond the edges to accommodate any irregularities in the steel frame. We screwed a thin strip of lauan to the steel frame and I attached the painted muslin to that. Stapling the muslin of the Bower flat to the curve of the steel proved difficult as I had to continually fold the muslin over itself as I was wrapping so as to keep the front face of the Bower flat. The muslin was so long that attaching at one end and working my way to the other also made it difficult to judge if the muslin was hanging correctly on the steel. I trimmed the edges and we hung the Bower flat on its batten, awaiting automation.

The Bower trunk was started in mid-September by Mahan. It consisted of a steel frame under sculpted foam under textured and painted muslin. Mahan welded the steel frame together, which corresponded to the roots of the tree and attached it to a sheet of

30 oriented strand board4 to provide a foundation. The piece needed to move on and off stage, so Mahan and Zinkon added pneumatically-acuated casters to the frame. The pneumatic cylinders above the castors lifted the Bower trunk off the stage floor just enough that the Bower trunk could roll on the casters. Zinkon attached a loop of thin wire rope to the Bower trunk. He ran this through a motor which pulled the loop through to move the Bower trunk on and off stage when cued from the automation computer.

Although we started construction of the trunk in early September, the studio staff put it to the side to focus on other projects until late October. Mahan added a central steel frame to provide the body of the Bower trunk over which I sculpted a figure reminiscent of Larche’s Loïe Fuller. I agreed with Mahan to sculpt the Bower trunk outside of my regular studio hours. Unluckily, this second phase of the Trunk began so late that the only weekend remaining was the weekend of November 2 and 3, the same weekend that Pla and Graves were focusing lights. This meant that I had to work in a corner of the theatre and not on stage. This was inconvenient, but did not interfere with the overall look of the unit until I reached the top. Being in a tight corner of the theatre made it difficult to place ladders to safely reach the 13’ top of the trunk. It was very difficult to sculpt foam and wrap the muslin as tightly as I wanted to, leading to a somewhat bulbous effect at the top of the Trunk which worked against the shapely and feminine quality I was after. I revisited the Trunk some days later and was able to tighten up the draping of the fabric.

4 oriented strand board: an engineered sheet board made by compressing layers of wood strands in various orientations 31

I knew from rehearsals that Titania laid down to sleep in her Bower, so it was important that the finishing steps kept the Bower smooth and sturdy. The final step in creating the Bower trunk was to coat the muslin with a scenic dope5 made of elastomeric roof coating, glue, and paint. This made the muslin rigid while maintaining a texture which was smooth to the touch. Mahan crafted lily pads out of sheet metal and bolted them to the frame which I later painted.

The Bower trunk and Flat were both automated to move on and off stage during the show. The Bower flat flew in on a rigging line while the trunk rolled on from off stage right. They were timed so that they would both land in their final positions at the same moment.

The Moon

The Moon unit was an 8’ diameter disk designed to be lit internally and arc across the sky. I designed the Moon to be 8” deep in order to house the lighting fixtures. The frame consisted of two rings of tube steel with a divider to split the Moon into two sections. This divider corresponded with the crescent of the Moon and prevented light from the crescent bleeding into the dark side of the moon and vice-versa. Pla and the lighting personnel attached strips of LED tape to a plywood disk. We later attached this disk to the back of the frame.

I covered the cylindrical frame of the Moon with muslin which I later painted.

Unlike the Bower flat which I painted while the muslin attached to the floor, the muslin

5 scenic dope: any number of mixtures used for texturing scenic pieces 32 covering the Moon was attached to its frame first. This is because the stained glass leading on the Moon had to match the steel of the frame in order to mask it from view. I sized the muslin as I had done on the Bower flat and the portals and painted the Moon using the same translucent paints.

The greatest challenge for me regarding the Moon came from working its movements across the stage. Technically speaking, the Moon was automated to have a full range of motion across both horizontal and vertical planes. The challenge came in planning the timing and spacing of the actual movements. Originally, I had conceived that the Moon would slowly and continuously move across the stage in a large arc with no fast or sudden movements. I set a series of milestones that I wanted the Moon to hit and gave Mahan and Zinkon a list of these locations and the times I expected the transitions would need to take in order to look like one smooth arc. Zinkon programed these movements into the computer, despite cautions from himself and Mahan that it may not look as elegant as I imagined and that it would be hard to consistently coordinate with the timing of the play.

The first technical rehearsal revealed that the slow movements of the moon were never going to work. Such a gradual movement, really a sequence of very small movements, did not look elegant as it made the Moon appear to jitter and shake as it negotiated dozens of little vertical and horizontal movements at once. Swift movements, however, looked much better with our system. The directors and I decided that the

Moon’s movements would be a series of larger shifts between scenes. This proved most effective in showing the passage of time and a change of location within the Forest.

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Fortunately, most of the milestones could be kept as they were, placed roughly equally across the space.

Although the team identified most changes to automation cues early on, one lingered until later in the process. We wanted the Moon to come back for Puck’s final soliloquy, after Athens left. Coordinating this proved a little difficult as it involved discretely setting the Moon in place upstage of the Athens unit while the final scene in

Athens played out, then rapidly pulling out the Athens wall, revealing the full Forest and

Moon eerily lit up. To gauge the effect, we ran this transition many times in rehearsal with the Moon entering at different times throughout the scene. We ultimately decided that the Moon would track on stage during the final dance number. This provided the optimal diversion allowing the Moon to be placed onstage unnoticed by the audience until the Athens unit was flown out.

Athens

In October, construction began on Athens. Athens was designed to be almost the full width of the stage and nearly 20’ tall. Mahan realized it would weigh too much to lift onto a batten if it were built as a single flat, so he decided that it would be constructed in three sections. We framed each of the three sections with steel and covered those frames with lauan. To cut down on the weight of the unit, Mahan proposed that the trim I had designed for the unit, over 100 linear feet in total, be made of styrofoam instead of wood.

This was an easy compromise to make as the overall effect was not dependent on the exact shapes, sizes, and dimensions of the trim.

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After the studio framed and faced the three units, I prepared them for paint. I coated the Athens walls with roughly ten gallons of a new scenic dope made of paint, glue, and sawdust. This gave the unit a stony texture akin to the research imagery I had presented. There was some trouble with this step, though, as the mixture was too runny and occasionally did not cover up seams in the construction well. This was remedied by mixing thicker batches of the scenic dope and reapplying as needed. I painted the unit by spraying it with water and spattering a raw sienna glaze on it to match the look of stone I was recreating.

The studio staff and students attached the three Athens walls to each other to form one single unit. The remaining steps were to cover the windows and add the doors. The windows were backed with a pale blue scrim that we had in stock. I stretched and stapled the scrim to the backside of the steel frame and trimmed it to fit appropriately. The doors were a particular challenge for us. Mahan did not want to risk the doors falling open while the flat was in the air, so he installed self-closing spring hinges. Initially, this had the unintentional effect of occasionally causing the doors to slam which shook the entire flat. We remedied this by adjusting the tension on the hinges and instructing anyone passing through to ease the doors shut.

The Rock Bridge

The ramp went through many changes before becoming the rock bridge seen in the final design. In early September, the scenic studio began construction of the major elements of the fallen tree ramp: the ramp itself, the lower and upper landings, and an

35 escape ramp. Mahan built these out of wood and steel and installed them on stage as soon as all three Forest portals were in the air.

Mahan and I created mock-ups of the fungi steps as we tried to create a safe and functional path of transit up the stairs and to the landing. We did this by building a number of small platforms corresponding to the sizes of the fungi steps I drafted and rearranging them on stage. This proved difficult and time-consuming. By early October, we built a configuration which was visually pleasing, practical, and safe.

By the second week of October, we learned that there was not enough time to sculpt the fallen tree so I reconceived the ramp. With the structure of the ramp unit already in place, I sought imagery of naturally forming bridges. I researched natural arches like those at Ayres Natural Bridge Park for inspiration. I created a new paint elevation depicting the ramp as a large, natural rock bridge. The style matched the illustrated look of the stained glass windows found elsewhere in the design and was based on Agnes F. Northrop’s window Autumn Landscape (see Figure 6).

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Figure 6. Autumn Landscape Window, attributed to Agnes F. Northrop for Tiffany Studios

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I covered the fungi steps in muslin and covered it in the same scenic dope used on

Athens to achieve a stony texture. I painted the steps to resemble the research. In its finished form, the ramp depicted a naturally forming rock arch with rocks which stuck out at its base which the performers could climb. I also painted its offstage edges to match the portals.

The Pit Entrance and Apron Stairs

The design called for the apron to be reconfigured in a large S-curve with stairs leading down to an additional entrance. The two trees along either side of the proscenium had roots which crept down and wrapped around the edge of the apron and the pit entrance. One of the first projects the scenic studio undertook was to remove the existing apron and replace it with one matching the design. The apron in place was a series of traditional platforms on standard 2”x4” stud walls. The studio removed some of these and replaced them with platforms and stud walls custom-built to the shape I specified in my drawings.

The apron stairs were a series of small, custom platforms on legs faced in a flexible plywood. This same flexible plywood was used to face the large curve of the entire apron. In the original design, the stairs were black and disappeared into the architecture of the theatre. After I redesigned the fallen tree ramp into the rock bridge, I looked for a way to connect these two otherwise disparate units. I covered the apron stairs same scenic dope as the rock bridge. This tied in these steps with the steps of the rock bridge, creating a slightly more cohesive look with the existing rock bridge.

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The pit entrance was created by simply cutting a hole in the flexible plywood facing of the apron. We cut the trees which created that proscenium when the fallen tree ramp was redesigned. In their place, I left two stumps with roots extending to the edges of the apron. The roots of the stage right stump crept down and cradled the pit entrance, creating a finished edge to the feature. I treated the stumps and their roots with the same scenic dope used on the Bower trunk and painted them to match.

The Floor

My original intention for the floor was to paint it a satin black. As the design came together, I realized that this would look incomplete against such a colorful and full world. I explored the ways Tiffany and Grüber created the ground and forest floors in their stained glass landscapes. I was particularly drawn to their larger, less intricate panes of glass and their opalescent treatments like those found in a window from Rochroane

Castle (see Figure 7). I created an elevation for the floor and the downstage face of the apron which recreated this colorful texture.

In technical rehearsals, I was bothered by how much light the painted floor reflected. Gray recommended that purple- and green-tinted sealers would darken the floor while preserving the color. Owing to the schedule, these had to be applied over a day when no rehearsals were taking place. This treatment was applied and successfully made the stage significantly less reflective.

The show was partially re-blocked during technical rehearsals, as well. Actors no longer performed in front of the apron and consequently, that area was no longer lit or

39 useful for storytelling. I decided to paint over much of the opalescent treatment with black, returning the space to the theatre. I retained some of the opalescent treatment added a finished edge resembling the edges of the panes of glass found in my window and lamp research imagery.

Figure 7. Window from Rochroane Castle, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, Manufactured by Tiffany Studios

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Properties

Although Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not explicitly call for many props, the adapted script did. These included weapons, furniture, paper goods, foliage, and a handful of miscellaneous props. I worked closely with Stage Manager Leah

Kessler to track these props throughout the process.

Weaponry

The first props seen in the show were a set of four bows used by Hippolyta and her Amazonians. These were the only weapons the directors wanted seen in the show, and their goal was to be as minimal as possible in their representation: no arrows or strings. Belsky and I found some imagery of primitive bows that we were interested in creating. Steinmetz created the overall shape of the bows my heating PVC and bending it to the desired shape. To achieve the look of antiquated and primitive bows, we wrapped the bent PVC with cheesecloth and coated that with a scenic dope containing glue, elastomeric roof coating and paint. We then painted the bows dark brown to resemble wood.

The Mechanicals’ Paper Goods

There were a small number of paper props used in the show. Most of these were handled by the Mechanicals. Two of note included many copies of scripts for the

Mechanicals’ play Pyramus and Thisbe and a period almanac. The design for the scripts was inspired by period script covers featuring simple graphic borders. I created a front

41 and back cover for the scripts using this format and replaced the title and summary information accordingly. This was printed on an ivory paper and adhered over script books found in stock. The almanac was created by recovering an old softcover book with an edited image of an almanac cover from 1927. Approaching these props in this way helped to keep the show grounded in our time period.

The directors asked for a photo of Bottom for a scene where the Mechanicals, thinking he has gone missing or died, begin to mourn him. At first dress, I took many photos of the actor playing Bottom with his final costume and hairstyle. I chose what I felt was the most amusing pose, printed the image, and put it into a frame over a break.

The prop was loved and kept, adding another humorous layer to the Mechanicals’ story.

The Fairies’ Props

The script explicitly calls for the fairies to handle two flowers: the Magic Love

Flower to induce love and the Herb of Love Reversal to reverse the effects of the former.

It was important to me that these props, which had to be fully dimensional, visually connect with the illustrated and two-dimensional Forest we created on stage. We built the

Magic Love Flower out of floral stems and petals made from scrap muslin which we painted purple. We added petals attached with Velcro so that performers could be seen to tear petals from the flowers. We duplicated the process to create the Herb of Love

Reversal, but using yellow for the petals. Belsky built a crown of similar flower for the fairies to give to Bottom in the second half of the play.

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The directing team wanted to integrate a movement piece to the second half of the play, when the lovers wander the Forest. They envisioned the lovers wandering through a

Forest created by Oberon’s fairies as they wielded branches. I drafted up eight curvilinear branches mimicking those found in my stained glass and illustration research. We cut these shapes out of ¾” oriented strand board, wrapped them in muslin, and textured and painted them like the Bower trunk. Belsky and I added leaves made from muslin painted to resemble the leaves on the portals and the Bower flat. We also made a number of smaller branches for Titania’s fairies. The end products were fully functional for the fairies while maintaining the illustrated quality of the world around them.

The Play-Within-A-Play

We devoted a significant amount of time to creating props for Pyramus and

Thisbe, the Mechanicals’ play-within-a-play. The team wanted this moment to be over- the-top, silly, and fun. Some of the props were suggested by Overton’s costume designs, namely: Starveling’s lantern and stuffed dog; Snout’s wall; and Bottom’s sword, shield, and armor. The conceit of these pieces and other props from this segment was that the

Mechanical’s had found and stolen many of these props from the tavern they frequented earlier in the show.

Starveling’s stuffed dog was a retro plush dog purchased online. Belsky and I bent wire coat-hangers to create a large, tumbleweed-like shape for the thorn bush. To indicate that this was a piece that Starveling likely made himself, we left the recognizable hook of the hangers sticking out from the sides.

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Snout’s wall prop started life as a unique props-costume crossover. The piece was imagined by Overton and McClatchy as a large sandwich board-like piece made from the plaster and lath of an old house or the tavern itself. I worked with Steinmetz to devise how that might be created. Steinmetz drafted up a unit made with ½” upholstery foam and lath attached to recreate the look of plaster and lath panels. Making the actor’s movements appear clumsy and exaggerated was also important to the team, so the unit was somewhat oversized. The unit measured over four feet wide and went down to the actor’s knees.

McClatchy and the directing team imagined a bit wherein a character punches a hole in the wall for the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe to talk through. To accomplish this, we omitted framing in a small patch of the wall on either side. A hole was cut into the foam resembling a “doggy door” that the characters could punch open and shout through.

Burlap straps were added so that the performer portraying Snout could wear the unit like a sandwich board as Overton and McClatchy envisioned. We coated these with a scenic dope to create a paintable surface. Belsky, Cencer, and I all painted various parts of the piece like a wall covered in an old, dingy wallpaper. This paint treatment masked the hole we had created for the characters to speak through. The overall effect was convincing and hilarious. Late in technical process, the performer portraying Quince was struggling to effectively punch through the wall, taking away from the humor of the moment. Belsky and I modified the hole by entirely cutting away the pieces of foam in the hole. We reattached these at the bottom of the hole with tape and staples so that when the hole was punched, the foam plug would fall down, leaving the hole exposed for the rest of the

44 scene. This made it much clearer to the audience what Quince had done to the wall, making the scene that much more funny.

Overton’s design for Bottom included a shield made from a dart board, which

Belsky created from a piece of scrap plywood and paint. Belsky found an unpainted wooden sword in props storage which he painted. Overton built and painted Bottom’s armor to resemble a period beer logo. The trio of props had the charming look of homemade props, exactly as we intended.

Early in the autumn semester, McClatchy suggested that he might like a false stage for the Mechanicals to perform their play on. In keeping with the idea that the

Mechanicals took their materials from the tavern, I imagined a stage made of beer crates.

I designed a stage made of seven short crates of various sizes. To create a safe and consistent space, they were each 10” tall. We aged and distressed each crate, then labeled them with the names of fictional alcoholic beverages inspired by Shakespeare’s works.

Creating an additional level was not the only challenge with creating the false stage. McClatchy wanted the Mechanicals to perform their play near the doors of the

Athens wall. Rehearsals revealed that the Mechanicals would likely have to change into their costumes for the play-within-a-play upstage of the Athens wall. I devised a means for masking the Mechanicals: two panels of fabric hung from a piece of twine suspended between two narrow columns. The columns were distressed to suggest that the

Mechanicals had, like the wall piece, pulled them right out of a building.

We created this entire piece with the intention that the Mechanicals would have to set up this stage in-situ during the scene. I worked with stage management to give them

45 rehearsal props to mimic the shapes and sizes of these crates so that the directors could create this moment. I created assembly instructions resembling an IKEA instruction booklet which was used for both rehearsal and performance. The directors also worked with our sound designer, Lee Williams, to source upbeat period jazz music to add to the whimsy of the Mechanicals’ set-up. The final outcome was a hilarious vignette of the

Mechanicals struggling to load-in their show and worked as a lovely precursor to their comedic and awful production of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Furniture

All of the furniture for Midsummer came from the department’s stock. We pulled two matching barstools and two crates for use at the tavern where the Mechanicals meet.

The Mechanicals used all of these objects to sit and stand on throughout the scene.

Originally, the directing team asked for the Athenians to sit on large pillows for Act V, wherein they watch the Mechanicals’ play. It was during one of the final dress rehearsals, when we first saw all of the technical elements together, that the team realized that using the pillows was actually very cumbersome, especially for the characters wearing dresses.

I quickly suggested that we use period chars for the scene and the directors agreed that they could easily re-block the scene to accommodate this. Belsky and I pulled matching chairs from stock for this purpose and the end result was a much more elegant assembly of Athenian nobility for the final act.

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Technical Rehearsals

The tech process for Midsummer was a reasonably smooth process for me, all things considered. Certain finish treatments were missing from elements, but each major scenic element was present. At this stage, Gray recommended that the Bower and all other trees receive a final coat of brass paint to better reflect the research I presented.

Additionally, the portals were continuing to sag and deform, and I was not convinced the paint treatment on the floor was finished. Broadly speaking, I did not feel like there were many notes of any particular type from one night to the next, but many small notes which came and went.

Broadly speaking, the directors, Pla, and I were at odds over how bright various scenes and elements needed to be. The directors felt that the scenes needed to be brighter overall, encouraging Pla to introduce more front light to light the actors. Pla was inclined to keep scenes, especially those in the Forest, darker and more mysterious. Initially, I felt that Pla and Graves were revealing sections of the portals that were translucent too early in the show and that this took away from the magic. A quick discussion with Pla and the directors after the first tech led us to agreeing that we should save such effects only for moments evoking the fairies’ magic.

I also felt that the Bower was too dimly backlit while the Moon was too brightly lit. Pla brought down the intensity of the Moon lighting somewhat, though it could have been lowered more. Lighting the Bower was especially challenging because the portal immediately behind the Bower hung so low that it was difficult to light the Bower from the upstage lighting positions.

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Chapter 5. Evaluation

Overall, the scenic elements of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were successful parts of the final presentation. The scenographic environment effectively created a stylized world which focused on grand gestures and elegance that could be both light and charming as well as sensuous and eerie. Most importantly, the design worked with the adapted script and highlighted the stark contrasts brought forth by McClatchy’s initial statement while simultaneously emphasizing the power and powerlessness each character possessed.

Individual Scenic Elements

The finished product was very good and a vast majority of what was an ambitious design for me performed at or above expectations. The layers of illustrated foliage and translucent flowers in the Forest created a dynamic, colorful, vibrant, and textured world.

It was easy to believe that the characters could get lost here, even though very little changed and much of the space was open. The Bower was graceful and sensual, moved smoothly, worked well with Pla’s lighting, and stood out as a visually attractive piece of scenery. The Moon was both elegant and capricious, organic like the Forest but sharp like

Athens, overseeing them both. Its movement was swift and meaningful and Pla’s internal lighting effects were a surprise for the audience and gave it a terrific edge, despite its

48 brightness. Lastly, Athens was both aggressive and confining despite it only existing as a single wall unit. Its stone columns were stoic and rigid while its decorative motifs pointed to so many of the themes and contextual nuances were trying to evoke.

The application of paint was incredibly important to the final design and the area about which I had the most to learn. On the whole, the paint treatments were very successful. The variety of colors and textures created a world that was rich and sumptuous. They contrasted appropriately with the costumes Overton designed for the

Athenians and the Mechanicals while connecting to the colorful costumes of the fairies.

Creating these connections and contrasts underscored the complex relationships that characters from different echelons of society have with their environments and reinforced

McClatchy’s dialectic tensions. The organic, curvilinear, and sometimes unpredictable lines on these pieces kept the eye moving around while Pla’s lighting told the eye where to go.

The integration of the Rock Bridge into the design is one area of the project which did not work as well as I had intended. Although, creating a natural rock bridge out of the ramp was sensible, the sculptural steps at the bottom should have been replaced with two- dimensional steps which could be masked with flats. In addition to cleaning up the visual of the rock bridge, this would also have made Titania’s Bower the only prominent sculptural element, thus distinguishing her Bower further.

The steps which led to the audience level of the theatre could also have been more successfully tied into the set. They became visually incongruent to the rest of the design. Originally intended to be black and recede into the theatre, these were changed

49 late in the process to tie into the illustrated world of the Forest. Although they were used very successfully by the performers during the show, the paint treatment applied to the existing shape did not tie them into the overall design as well as intended. Fortunately, they were low enough to the floor of the auditorium and selectively lit so that the steps themselves did not draw undue attention.

I think the greatest flaw in the scenic design was that I did not think these last two elements through. In hindsight, I realize that I focused so much on creating the Portals for the Forest, the Bower, the Moon, and Athens, that I lost track of the apron stairs and the fallen tree ramp and did not adequately flesh them out in time. In addition, my visualization methods, which included sketches, a digital model, and physical models, did not help me identify the problem. I did not do a great job of fully realizing these elements in visualizations, leading to their redesign later in the process.

All this considered, I do think the final design was a success. By the time we made it to preview, I sat in the house completely enraptured by the visual story unfolding in front me. I watched as the characters’ costumes and the environment around them shifted and moved with the plot. By this time, I had identified a small number of things which I might have done differently, but I was still in awe at this fantasy world that Pla,

Overton, Williams, and I had created which took us from a Jazz Age Athens to an eerie yet magical Forest and back again. It was not flawless, but it did tell a magical story of people achieving a freedom they so longed for outside the confines of their familiar land and circumstances.

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Collaboration

The collaboration of the designers and the final quality of their work was excellent. The overall environment created by scenery, lighting, costumes, and sound was striking, dynamic, and told a lovely and complex story. However, there were many obstacles in this largescale production which could have been remedied sooner or avoided entirely.

Pla and I should have worked harder to understand how the scenic and lighting designs would work together to create onstage magic. If Pla and I had looked with more scrutiny at the design, we might have found that the second portal should have had a larger opening. This would have allowed more light from Pla’s lighting position to be used to backlight the Bower and the first portal. Although the lighting of the Moon was beautiful and expressive, it was often brighter than it needed to be. We talked about it briefly early on and it was partially remedied, but we did not circle back to it as a myriad of other lighting notes and changes arose through the process. I was also not assertive enough in addressing it.

The relationship between the scenic environment and the costume design was consistently good throughout and the overall composition was lovely. The creation of costume-properties, specifically for the Mechanicals’ play, was challenging but ultimately successful. There were small moments where the language created by props and costume design became muddy and inconsistent. For instance, the costume designer’s choice to put a lion on Bottom’s homemade armor was textually and visually confusing, as another of the Mechanicals was acting as a lion for that scene. I am not

51 convinced that it occurred to anybody else, but if I had realized sooner, I may have requested that we consider a different emblem for that costume-prop.

I was also very pleased with how I managed time and labor between painting scenery and creating properties in the middle of the process. Working with two assistant designers and a scenic charge on a show of this scale was a learning experience for me.

Belsky, Cencer, and Chaffin were delightful to work with and my constant interactions with them kept me alert and always on the move. I tried my best to give them meaningful projects to be working on, especially Belsky and Cencer, who by nature of experience had less autonomy than Chaffin. It was not always possible to do that and when those situation arose, I sent Belsky and Cencer home to tend to their own affairs. Managing as many assistants and colleagues in this way is not always an easy task, but I believe that I managed this crew effectively throughout the process.

The Process and Reflections

I learned much about my design process and capabilities in my time at the Ohio

State University while working on productions of an increasingly larger scale. I challenged myself to integrate unfamiliar paint techniques into my designs and worked hard to learn these techniques. My ability to focus on the many details of a design was also tested and I will continue to improve as I move further into the professional world.

All these things considered, I regard this process and my entire time spent at Ohio State as a success.

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Bibliography

“Dates and Sources: A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Royal Shakespeare Company, 2020,

www.rsc.org.uk/a-midsummer-nights-dream/about-the-play/dates-and-sources.

Calderwood, James L. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Harvester Wheatsheaf Press, 1992.

Craig, Leon H. Of Philosophers and Kings: Political Philosophy in Shakespeare's

Macbeth and King Lear. University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Gontar, Cybele. “Art Nouveau.” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. 2006, New York:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

McClatchy, Kevin. Director’s Statement. 2019. Digital.

Pennington, Michael. A Midsummer Night's Dream: A User's Guide. Nick Hern, 2008.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Adaptation by Kevin McClatchy,

Nathan Simms, and Anne Peterson. 2019. Digital.

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Appendix A. Text from Kevin McClatchy’s Director’s Statement

Director’s Statement

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By William Shakespeare

Kevin McClatchy

March 2019

Dialectic Tensions

Love/Hate

Reality/Fantasy

Freedom/Oppression

Sanity/Madness

Mortal/Supernatural

Power/Subjugation

Physical/Ethereal

Night/Day

Magic/Sensible

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Jealousy/Support

Self-Respect/Self-Loathing

Empowerment/Denial

(** A Proviso: Unlike other directional documents I’ve generated in the past, this one will have a distinctly loose-limbed, kitchen-sink tenor to it. Due to myriad factors of timing and priorities, the degree of research and textual analysis has not progressed beyond an exploratory phase. I see this as an unexpected opportunity to deepen the collaborative conversation with the production design team.)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (subsequently referred to as Midsummer) is arguably Shakespeare’s best-known and most beloved comedy. The task facing any director helming a production is finding the balance of invigorating (and trusting) a dauntingly familiar text while avoiding the trap of cleverness for the sake of newness.

Above all, though, is the absolute necessity of communicating the beauty, rhythm and clarity of the language with full commitment and intent — and accomplishing this in a way that is enhanced, illuminated and enlivened by the production design.

In the end, the single dominant characteristic that makes Shakespeare’s work distinctively Shakespearean is the language.

As such, I have entertained a number of possible interpretations that included specific time periods. Each had it’s (sic) moments of dazzling possibility but ultimately felt like a shoehorning; a gimmick; a compromise. This may stem, in part, from the last professional production of Midsummer I saw — at the Royal Shakespeare Company in

2016. While visually inventive and arresting, it was surprisingly short on magic, laughter,

55 enchantment and emotional resonance. Watching that production, I realized that

Midsummer had a few demands that any production must fulfill:

— It must transport the audience vividly to the Athenian court (or its proxy), the

Athenian wood (or its proxy), Titania’s bower and the meeting place of the mechanicals, the amateur acting troupe.

— It must compel a contemporary audience to engage and identify with the immediacy of the language and the universality of the specific complications, calamities and reconciliations of the characters.

— It must be funny.

— And a little risky

— And a little dangerous.

Midsummer is commonly perceived as a theatrical confection — a benign romp about fairies wreaking good-natured havoc on mortals and, in the case of Titania, one of their own. Indeed, it is a play about fairies but it is a complex, often satirical take on the vagaries of desire, sex, power and, ultimately, love and freedom. Midsummer has certain elements that contain undercurrents of danger, desperation, violence and oppression.

Hippolyta is the conquered queen of the Amazons and betrothed to Theseus as part of the spoils of his victory. Demetrius threatens to leave Helena “to the mercy of the wild beasts” or “do thee mischief in the wood.” Puck, that “merry wanderer of the night” was understood by Elizabethan audiences to be potentially more than simply a mischievous prankster — one who could carry genuine menace and erotic danger.

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There is also jealousy in the forest — the “green-eyed monster” Shakespeare describes in Othello nearly ten years after Midsummer. Each of the four lovers —

Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius — spend time in jealous fits of one kind or another. The “forgeries of jealousy” drive the fierce marital disturbance between Oberon and Titania — a rift that has convulsed the weather and disrupted the seasons, causing relentless rains, massive flooding, pervasive fog, and plague-like disease.

This loads the color green with a potentially interesting double meaning for today’s audiences. From the extreme meteorological chaos in Midsummer to the unprecedented year-long spell of wet weather Elizabethans endured in 1594-95 to the polar vortexes, bomb cyclones and historic flooding we witness today, the issue of the volatility of nature remains an urgent and fascinating one.

Midsummer is generally agreed to have been written in 1595-96, at a time when

England was embroiled in an Irish rebellion, a seemingly constant threat from Spain and a growing concern about who would become heir to the throne of the childless Elizabeth

I. A significant demographic shift had also been taking place. People were migrating from the country to the city to gain employment following the toll of plague on the work forces of urban populations. Cities expanded, the price of food skyrocketed and life became a different kind of struggle. Forests and dense woodlands became symbols of a purer, “greener” existence — far from the terror of plague and the grime of industry.

In Midsummer, the forest becomes the place where inhibitions evaporate, desires and feelings can turn on a dime, at the whim of forces beyond one’s control. Characters see and feel dreams as “real,” and “reality” seems like a fleeting reverie. The madness of

57 overwhelming and nimbly shifting love infects those who dwell in the forest — from the young mortal lovers to the fairy queen Titania. Indeed, it is left to Bottom, the weaver and amateur actor, to sum up the proceedings while in the amorous crosshairs of Titania and sporting the head of an ass, “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days” (Act III Scene One).

This madness is akin to a chemical imbalance and is a potent theme (some say an obsession, even) for Shakespeare, who would return to it in As You Like It (1599), with

Rosalind declaring, “Love is merely a madness and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do” (Act III Scene 2) and again in Twelfth Night (1600) when Olivia describes Malvolio’s obsession with her, “Why, this is very midsummer madness.” (Act III Scene 4).

In Midsummer, however, a satirical bent follows the characters throughout.

Things are only righted when magic is used. The love juice applied by Puck to Lysander and Demetrius is ultimately removed from Lysander but not Demetrius. Therefore,

Demetrius is still at the mercy of magic when he heads to the palace to wed Helena. One has to wonder what is it that drives Helena to say yes to Demetrius. Is love the real antidote or is it marriage? Or is the ending a dose of satire about marriage? It is an interesting question for us to consider. Shakespeare could not have been more aware that,

Elizabeth I, his queen — and at who’s pleasure he and the Chamberlain’s Men performed

— steadfastly refused marriage throughout her life and saw herself as wedded only to

England.

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The mechanicals — the amateur acting troupe — are also a vehicle for

Shakespeare’s satire. Midsummeris the only play in which we see the play-within-a-play actually being rehearsed. This allows for a great deal of comedy at the expense of actors and theatrical pursuits and builds momentum toward the final performance the troupe gives of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Seemingly overseeing all of the proceedings is the moon — and all its light, its power, its shadows and its enchantment. The moon is mentioned fifty-three times in

Midsummer. The next closest in Shakespeare is The Tempest, with twelve mentions. The moon pervades every encounter — from the opening scene between Theseus and

Hippolyta right on through to the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe at the wedding celebration in the castle. Especially in the forest, on this midsummer night, the light of the moon exposes all the madness and whiplash emotion of love as well as the rash and foolish behavior it unleashes.

All of this is to say — admittedly in a patchwork and shorthand way — that

Midsummer offers much more opportunity for emotional resonance than is often sought and excavated in production. If unearthed, this emotional resonance will only deepen and carbonate the comedy inherent in the structure of the play. So how do we go about doing all that?

Production Thoughts

At this stage of the game, I am in an unfamiliar but exciting position. I have yet to do sufficient research or textual analysis to come to many concrete decisions; however, that opens up a vital opportunity, particularly given our academic setting. This situation

59 allows for a level of collaboration and conversation with production design artists that may not have taken place otherwise.

Here is what I think I know to date (and is subject to alteration or outright change):

I had flirted with specific time periods and locations but I don’t know that they are entirely necessary. Shakespeare seemingly had no qualms with mixing Greek legend and mythology with undeniably Elizabethan mechanicals. At the same time, I think considering influences can be very potent while allowing the language and the universal and timeless themes in Midsummer to carry the day.

For example, the 1920s are an intriguing vein to mine for this play. It was a time of global transformation:

— Europe was essentially redrawn after World War I, never to be the same

— Women in a number of countries became more educated, emancipated socially and entered the work force with zeal as men were sent off to the front

— War itself had changed irrevocably with World War I, becoming mechanized in a way that allowed one to die as if by magic, never seeing who or where that death came from..

— The spectre of that new warfare, and the feat of surviving it, brought a deep desire for abandon and excitement.

— Prohibition hit the US, giving rise to speakeasies and absinthe dens (interestingly, absinthe was reputed to be a hallucinogen and was known as the “green fairy”)

— Jazz —with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and King Oliver leading the way — exploded

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— Old money, aristocracy and class divisions persisted

— Greece sat poised between the Great War and a civil war, on the brink of dismantling a monarchy

— Surrealism emerged to share the world’s canvas with Gustav Klimt, Georgia O’Keeffe and Henri Matisse

This is just one vivid example and not necessarily a prescription. Again, much of this document is driven more by initial impulse than extensive textual analysis and in- depth research. So the opportunity for an exchange of ideas exists in full.

Something I am quite certain about — and that carries scenic and costume implications — is that Theseus is a war veteran and Hippolyta is, to one degree or another, a captive bride-to-be. Egeus is also a veteran and a trusted confidant to Theseus.

I think Demetrius is a veteran as well. It would explain clearly why Egeus favors him over Lysander, who did not serve in the war. As such, I believe that the framing device for this production just might be Hippolyta’s dream life: in her need to escape the essentially forced marriage she faces — at least to the realm of her dreams—, Hippolyta launches herself, those in her life and the audience into the magical world of the forest where little is as it seems and anything can change at a moment’s notice.

In conjunction with this parallel dream life of Hippolyta, I believe we will be doubling the following roles:

Theseus/Oberon

Hippolyta/Titania

Philostrate/Puck

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Egeus/Bottom

In addition, we will cast 6-8 ensemble members who will double as members of the court and magical inhabitants of the forest.

In terms of scenic design, I am very interested to see how vividly and efficiently we can conjure the military opulence and angularity of the court; the rich, moonlit magic, shadows and danger of the forest; the spectacle of Titania’s bower; and the lower-class vibe of the tavern the mechanicals meet in (as opposed to Quince’s house, as the script suggests).

Again, I have thrown the 1920s into the arena but I also am open to inspirational insights from the design team. Do you feel that classically castle-esque furniture/interior is more evocative? More effectively timeless?

This production will be intensely physical — hopefully a combustible mix of fully realized text, challenging choreography and stage combat, and original and adapted music generated (as much as possible) by the cast. I am interested in the possibility of collaborating with the Department of Dance and the School of music to come up with original content both physically and musically.

And since we are in the Thurber, the use of levels and depth seems particularly exciting. I wonder what the possibilities would be of extending some of our design elements beyond the proscenium boundaries. I admittedly have no idea what that would look like. The notion of it, the immersion of it, sounds interesting to me.

I also am intrigued by the possibility of somehow glimpsing the entrance to — or suggestion of — the magical forest in the opening scenes at court. I envision this

62 production to be a sumptuous, charged and careening romp that must earn its respites. I believe we should try to perform this play without an intermission. Once the machinations of the plot lurch into gear, we need to live by our emotional, textual and comedic wits, so to speak.

In terms of lighting design, a necessity of this production will be a certain quicksilver kind of transition between locales as well as in the feeling and seeing of each scene. The fact that the fairies are referred to as “shadows” multiple times in the text is something I think is interesting to explore. Also interesting are the numerous mentions of moonlight and its effect on the proceedings. Just how does the moon and its light infiltrate, insinuate and orchestrate the events? In the same breath, though — is there room for bursts of unexpected showers of color?

What are the various uses, I wonder, of green, as referenced earlier?

Regarding the costume design, Theseus, Egeus and Demetrius are military combat veterans (or possibly still technically active.) I would like to find an elegant way of clearly communicating that. Hippolyta is a trophy fiancee of the most original and potentially combustible kind. What does the Queen of the Amazons look like in this scenario?

It would be fantastic to have the option of a couple of light layers for the four young lovers — as they could potentially shed some clothing as their inhibitions disappear in the forest. Clearly, this would mean tasteful and appropriate undergarments, should we go that direction. Other than that, I don’t currently have a strong impulse about the style of their clothing.

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As for the fairy world — I do see a difference between Oberon’s delegation and

Titania’s. There is great strength and magic in both. Oberon and Puck suggest to me a more primal, animal and potentially explosive vibe. Puck’s gender — or, possibly, androgyny — is also entirely up in the air and dependent on casting. Again, I am open to inspiration on that front.

Titania and her train feel like the apex of the mix of the primal and the ethereal —

Titania seems utterly formidable and capable of anything, yet I keep seeing a Gustav

Klimt painting come to vivid life somehow — with a sleight-of-hand Elizabethan touch somewhere.

The mechanicals — a source of insider satire for Shakespeare — seem to want to lean toward the working-man clothes of theatre tradesmen. Each of their occupations were actually necessary for the execution of a play in Elizabethan theatre. This doesn’t mean their clothes have to be Elizabethan but possibly have some connection to the theatre builders. As for their costumes for Pyramus and Thisbe, we can talk about the possibility of the amateur actors having access to some old costumes from past productions of the play or maybe they fashion the costumes from desperately assembled found objects.

The possibilities of sound design are expansive. What is the sound of the magical forest? How much of it is mischievous enchantment or transformative desire and love or genuine menace, chaos and foreboding? I do think the evidence of climate calamity that

Titania details can exist is some way right from the beginning. It would seem odd not to have any aural or lighting references to that which she describes in great length. I

64 welcome a conversation about the sound design of the world of the mechanicals and the court as well.

The time period is essentially — and I’m not trying to be opaque or precious about this — timeless. I would like to resist the temptation to set the play in a specific time period. The play, with its Greek mythology and English folklore and Elizabethan surnames, seems to want a degree of interpretation, a degree of specific elusiveness. Of course, the last thing I want is to confuse the audience so how we do that in a way that is unifying and in service of the story is one element I look forward to discovering and clarifying together with the design team.

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Appendix B. Design Material

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Figure 8. Drafting Plate S1 – Ground Plan 67

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Figure 9. Drafting Plate S2 – Centerline Section

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Figure 10. Drafting Plate S3 – False Proscenium 69

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Figure 11. Drafting Plate S4 – Apron and Pit Entrance 70

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Figure 12. Drafting Plate S5 – Portal 1 71

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Figure 13. Drafting Plate S6 – Portal 2 72

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Figure 14. Drafting Plate S7 – Portal 3 73

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Figure 15. Drafting Plate S8 – Ground Row 74

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Figure 16. Drafting Plate S9 – Bower 75

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Figure 17. Drafting Plate S10 – Bower flat 76

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Figure 18. Drafting Plate S11 – Bower trunk 77

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Figure 19. Drafting Plate S12 – Bower Lily Pads 78

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Figure 20. Drafting Plate S13 – Moon 79

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Figure 21. Drafting Plate S14 – Ramp 80

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Figure 22. Drafting Plate S15 – Ramp Details 81

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Figure 23. Drafting Plate S16 – Athens 82

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Figure 24. Drafting Plate S17 – Athens Sections 83

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Figure 25. Drafting Plate S18 – Athens Windows 84

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Figure 26. Drafting Plate S19 – Athens Trim 85

8

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Figure 27. Drafting Plate S20 – Mechanicals Stage 86

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Figure 28. Drafting Plate ZX –Revised Ramp Flats 87

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Figure 29. Final Design Rendering – Unit Set 88

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Figure 30. Final Design Rendering – Athens 89

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Figure 31. Final Design Rendering – Bower 90

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Figure 32. Final Design Rendering – Moon Rising 91

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Figure 33. Final Design Rendering – Moon in Final Position 92

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Figure 34. Paint Elevation – Portal 1

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Figure 35. Paint Elevation – Portal 2

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Figure 36. Paint Elevation – Portal 3

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Figure 37. Paint Elevation – Stage Right Ground Row

Figure 38. Paint Elevation – Center Stage Ground Row

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Figure 39. Paint Elevation – Stage Left Ground Row

Figure 40. Paint Elevation – Moon

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Figure 41. Paint Elevation – The Bower

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Figure 42. Paint Elevation – Fallen Tree Ramp 99

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Figure 43. Paint Elevation – Rock Bridge

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Figure 44. Paint Elevation – Athens

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Figure 45. Digital Model – Athens

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Figure 46. Digital Model – Forest and Bower

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Figure 47. Digital Model – Forest and Bower with Moon

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Appendix C. Final Properties List

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Figure 48. Final Properties List 106

Appendix D. Automation Tracking

Figure 49. Automation Tracking

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Appendix E. Production Photos

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Figure 50. Production Photo – The Prologue Battle. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 51. Production Photo – The Opening Scene At Athens. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 52. Production Photo – The Mechanicals Quarrel at the Tavern. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 53. Production Photo – The First Forest Scene. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 54. Production Photo – Lovers In the Forest. Photo by Cade M. Sikora.

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Figure 55. Production Photo – The Fairies Sing Titania to Sleep. Photo by Cade M. Sikora.

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Figure 56. Production Photo – Oberon Moves the Moon. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 57. Production Photo – Oberon’s Fairies Ensnare Demetrius. Photo by Cade M. Sikora.

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Figure 58. Production Photo – The Next Morning. Photo by Cade M. Sikora.

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Figure 59. Production Photo – Pyramus and Thisbe. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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Figure 60. Production Photo – The Puck’s Final Monologue. Photo by Jodi Miller.

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