Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2017 - Public - 64

When I moved into the performing world of the theatre, from high
school musicals, through university, and eventually on to Broadway,
my interest in the other side of the theatre never waned. There was
nothing like watching our bare stage slowly become Damon Runyon's
Times Square of Guys and Dolls, or the mystical world of The Wiz's Oz.
as it ascended into the jellicle night like a spaceship
returning home, again from the mind of John Napier.
I have shed tears watching the stage action on sets as
spare as a chair, or a table, but no less effective, all of
them created out of wood, fiberglass, steel, plaster, and
the beautiful mind of the set designer and his or her
merry band of wizards.
Lights-yeah, the wonder of lights. As I said before, the first thing that captured my imagination was
the indigo blue in that early production of Cinderella. I
didn't see that same hue, or should I say I didn't feel it
again, until I walked into the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
in New York for the 1994 revival of Carousel. The front
curtain was basically a curved down-stage cyc bathed in
a deep blue-purple light. It seemed to actually vibrate. I
watched as many in the audience sat and stared at this
light, as I did myself. We were being hypnotized and
brought into the world of a New England twilight. I
like to say that the lighting designer, not unlike the set
designer, paints the stage with light.
I sat in the audience at the Broadway production
of Hamilton and marveled at the lighting design. While
the set remained fairly the same throughout, the lighting changed and created locations and moods at the same
speed as the plot and our imaginations and the thought
processes of the actors on stage. It was beautiful to witness.
The lighting plot can give us actors our emotional
context and reality. There is nothing more powerful than
seeing an actor on a stage in a single pool of light. Such
a moment is always expective with possibilities. Whether it's Elphaba's defying gravity in Wicked or Prospero
riding the emotional storms of The Tempest or Hamlet
pondering "to be or not to be," we, the actors, are taught
under all circumstances, to find our light. We do, and we
thank you for bathing us in your sorcery. We love the
lighting designers.
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Of course, I must personally pay homage to the
costume designer. I've worn many brilliant creations,
many of them furry and feline. I always try, as an actor,
to spend time with the costume designer. Many times,
I would skip lunch, and that's a lot for me, to sit and
talk historical period design and fabrics and buckles and
buttons and lapels and so on. The right costume can,
and usually does, create the first visual impact of the
character on the audience. Even in the dressing room, it
aids in the inhabitation and the persona of the character
for the actor. Whether it's a hat, a scarf, or a head-to-toe
recreation of a time and place, how important is that
costume? Very. For me it always starts with the shoes.
Cats was the first time a fully house-integrated sound
plot was used on Broadway, to the best of my knowledge.
The musical sound, like the cast, came from all over the
theatre. Some of the instruments came from upper house
left, while the clarinets and synthesizers came from the
back of the orchestra floor, creating whimsical interplay
with the audience-like, well, like cats. The floor rumbled, and the sound converged down stage center and
soared upward, with the rising of a disc of blinking and
strobing light stage center. This was just in the overture.
The division of instruments and sound effects was
used throughout the evening. It was one of the first, if
not the first time an orchestra was completely offstage,
along with what had before been the pit singers. The
conductor was on three screens mounted on the balcony
rail. Now, while all of this was the idea of Sir Andrew
Lloyd Webber, it was executed by the amazing sound
designer, and his technical, or her technical, magicians.
I would also like to take another moment to say, if
I may, while awards do not measure the whole contribution of any artist to the project that they are involved in,
the fact that there is no Tony Award category for Sound
Design is a huge oversight. When you hear the score of

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