A Designer Prepares-- The Final Installment

Sadly, we must bid a fond farewell to Lucas Krech and his excellent A Designer Prepares.  Here is part IV of the series.

A Designer Prepares - On to the stage

Up to now I have been talking exclusively of the planning phases of the play making process. I began alone with the text learning the story. I then joined my collaborators to develop our collective reading of that text. Once the concept is complete I returned to my studio to translate the design ideas from words and images and emotions into a lighting system. After weeks and months of planning we discover the efficacy of all this when we hit the stage. We enter the theater, load-in the scenery, costumes and lighting, focus the lights and begin our technical rehearsals. Theory is now put to practice.

I mentioned in the last essay that I keep my lighting systems as flexible as possible. There are myriad reasons for this but it all comes down to a simple adage a mentor of mine once said, "The table will always move." In other words, the transition from the rehearsal hall to the stage necessitates changes in the staging, setting, etc. that the creative team can not discover until we are actually there. Even then, the potential for changes are not final. There are certain discoveries that we can only make in front of an audience. This is why we have previews, to trim the fat off a production and make the performance experience as lean and good as possible.

I have had some of my favorite cues deleted when a scene in a new play is cut because it just isn't working. Anyone working in the theatre has experienced this. During the preview process we must be brutally honest with regard to the show. If a particular moment is not working, or is not working as effectively as desired, we must reevaluate what we are doing. Sometimes the trouble has to do with a certain scene not being in line with the rest of the concept. Other times, the problem is the concept as a whole.

I once lit a musical where the brightly colored caribbean themed set, that worked so well in the model, utterly failed on stage and had to be painted black after the first preview. Needless to say, the lighting all had to be re-colored and the whole show re-cued. Instead of large full-stage color ideas we shifted to a more isolated spot-lit look for the piece. Those broad ideas I had based upon the original concept were tossed and I was fortunate to have had the foresight to break up my control of the lighting ideas for a wholly different way of visually approaching the play.

Our reading of the text and the performance becomes refined as we add more elements to it. From the first reading alone in my studio, to the addition of my collaborator's thinking, to responding to the other design elements and finally with the addition of the audience we learn as we go how a given text will express itself most effectively. Being receptive to the feed back given in each of these stages allow us to guide the show towards it full potential and success.

I love it when a concept works right out of the gate. That said, the real test of a director/designer collaboration occurs when nothing is working. You soon find out how adept you are at altering or wholly changing a concept with opening night ticking ever closer to now and joke after joke not landing with the audience. This is a situation where doing a deep reading of the text, both on my own and with my collaborators proves necessary. Having one's thinking firmly grounded in the text provides a guide as to what options will be most true to the needs of the story.

No matter whether the show is running smoothly or is falling apart at the seams, my discussions with the director remain focused on the emotional moment we are dealing with. Sometimes it is as simple as "brighter" or "darker," but more often the problem is rooted in the emotional and dramatic needs of the moment and we must go back to the conceptual language we have been developing throughout the design and development phases. We look first to our reading of the text, our concept. If we are following all the rules we created for that world, we must then take a step back and evaluate that reading as a whole. It is no fun to overhaul an entire design concept that has been weeks or months in the making, but that possibility must remain open or the final work may not arrive at its fullest possible expression.

Building lighting looks in the theatre is where the designer's ability to "get behind the eyes" of the director becomes invaluable. Even after many weeks or months of concept development there is always a shift that happens in the theatre. What "shadowy" means to one person is very different to someone else. The lighting designer must interpret and translate all those words and research images into a visual experience that resonates with the rest of the creative team in terms of the larger concept. Getting there is not always a straight line. A director may say they want such and such a scene brighter when in fact the problem is a color issue. Sometimes, instead of turning up the light they mention, the best solution is turning down or off a different and contrasting light to make a certain area appear "brighter." This is why I like to keep the discussion focused on the dramatic needs rather than the equipment used.

There are often several solutions to a given problem. Our job as designers is to look at the problem and determine the best action or combination of actions to solve it. We must not only remain true to the concept as we understand it, we must synthesize the sometimes competing needs of our collaborators, the director and fellow designers.

Being flexible with regards to the specific implementation of an idea while remaining true to the vision itself allows all the collaborators to best meet the needs of the story vis a vis the experience of the audience. This is how we make a play. Many different creative minds working in concert towards the achievement of a larger artistic vision.

(Image used under a creative commons license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelzimmer/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Comments

[Lucas Krech]

Thanks for the opportunity Isaac. I hope your readers have enjoyed the series.

BTW, nice graphic choice. I love the old-timey bulbs.