I’d love to say that I go into any project with a plan that I see through to the end of the run. I know that the Director’s Concept is supposed to state what your intentions are going into the production, but that would be a pretty short paper because (a) that’s not how my brain works and (b) my students are such an integral part of the process that I never just tell them how it is going to be. We work and develop the show together.
Earlier this school year, I got an email from Playscripts, Inc. I was looking for a Fall Show, so I opened the email. I love Playscripts because they often let you read the whole play before you buy it. I’m clicking through their website and I see They Promised Her the Moon by Laurel Ollstein. Great title! I start reading. My rule is that if I’m not interested in the first five pages, I’m moving on. This was the first play I’d read so far this year that I didn’t stop to see how many pages were left until the end. I sat and read the whole play through. Then I kinda freaked out. So much of this show takes place in an isolation tank. What is that? How do you build one of those on stage? When they aren’t in the isolation tank, they are in a plane. How am I going to do that? Okay, toss it in with the Winter Show pile and let the kids read it. I dropped the e-copy into Google Classroom and had my students read it out loud in class. I knew immediately that I had the right actors for this show and that we needed to do this for UIL One Act Play, not the Winter Show. My students were instantly as in love with the show as I was and it was settled.
But, deciding on a show doesn’t give you a set design. So deciding the theme and commanding image is next. I was called on by a teacher from a neighboring school to look at her set and see if was violating any UIL rules. It didn't, but it was pretty symmetric and didn’t offer any visual interest for her show, so I pulled out the mini unit set and started building. I shot her a pic of something that I thought served her better and was kinda drawn to one side of that design for some reason. It was just a pylon on a 1x1 cube, but I knew I’d incorporate it somehow. During the first week of rehearsal, we researched our characters and the time period and busted out the blocks again. I broke the company into groups and had them build a set design. Then I had them defend their design before switching up the groups and having them make adjustments to other set designs. I didn’t really love anything they came up with except one configuration kinda off to the side of one design that had been adjusted by the second group. Log that in the brain for later.
We set up the pylons, that configuration that I stole and a center platform and jumped right in working with it. I’d love to say I had a concrete idea of how this was going to work, but I didn’t. We ultimately decided to make the center platform the isolation tank and the pylons on the front of the stage became planes. As we worked through the show and decided on blocking, we discovered that the isolation tank didn’t need to be anything special. We signified it by having the actor “feel” the water, running their hands across the “top of the water” and “feeling the air above the water.” We would light all scenes that took place in the isolation tank/Jerrie’s hallucinations in blue light with a water flowing sound. We discovered that Jerrie fit easily under the propped up end of one of the “planes” for the scene where she’s working on one. The back configuration was a perfect aircontrol tower, doorway and launchpad. We blocked the show. My sound designer created the most beautiful soundscape and my light board operator was agile with the board and full of amazing ideas.
I did know that I wanted audience members to leave having heard a story that they probably hadn’t before. I was hoping they would go on to do some research, even if it was just a quick Google search, and be enthralled, like us, by these women that did so much for so little recognition.
It took a lot of failed ideas: found objects, technology, LEDs and hula hoops, before we decided that the set should be the back forty of Harvey’s land in Oklahoma. It should be old rusted planes and parts amongst a dead crop of cornstalks. It would be where Harvey got away from Helena and Jerrie escaped from the world. It’s what Jerrie would think of when she thought of her childhood and where she would escape to in her dreams. I wanted there to be background noise through most of the show. The sound of wind in the cornfield, water of the isolation tank, people in a crowded bar, reporters at the press conference. I’d say if I went into any aspect of this production knowing what I wanted, I knew what I wanted it to sound like. My student designer took my ideas and brought them more beautifully to life than I ever could have.
I knew early on that I wanted “flightsuits” for all the characters that fly. Jack in a traditional flightsuit, Jerrie in a romper as a child and in a jumpsuit as an adult and Jackie in a jumpsuit that was tailored within an inch of its life. I knew she would need the most changes and definitely something with a fur collar for her meeting with congress. I also wanted bomber jackets for all these characters.
I also knew that I wanted the actors to be real people. I wanted them to really embody these relationships and create characters that people cheered for or gave the audience a bad feeling. I wanted them to be surprised by how Jackie turned on Jerrie because I wanted them to believe that they really had a connection. I didn’t want any of the acting to seem presentation or put on. I wanted to let the world of the play offer up anything fanciful while the acting was realistic and true.
Ultimately, we created one heck of a great show. We won first place at District and Best Tech at Bidistrict. I couldn’t be more proud of the concept that we developed as a team.