Kabara Sol, Inside The Ford
Kabara Sol (pictured above) is set in a fictional Asian city in the 1930s for a story of a master criminal and his virtuous alter-ego. The Noir-style design made chief use of the concrete pillars and brick wall of the Inside-the-Ford Theatre to create a surreal world of intrigue. A chorus of six silent actors would handle props, allowing them to appear and disappear though the labyrinth of the set.
Aquitania, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Aquitania: the story of a librarian who is strangely summoned to Aquitania to solve a military conflict had, as its resolution, characters matching wits on a giant game board. The game board was hidden for most of the play and then revealed as the heroine and her nemesis squared off in a life-or-death competition. The art of Belgian surrealist René Magritte served as a stylistic reference point with a sky drop, bowler-hatted villains, strategically placed apples and more.
Twilight World: Tereus, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Twilight World: Procne, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Twilight World: Archipelago, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Twilight World: Three one-hour plays (Tereus, Procne and Archipelago) were written in the style of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, respectively, and moved forward in time from Ancient Greece to Empire France to the modern day. The set needed to support all three time periods and styles in a fluid way, as well as suggesting the classical amphitheater where such plays would have been first performed.
Chomolungma, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Chomolungma, a play about summiting Everest, needed to accommodate scenes of both the mountain, and those in the village waiting for the climbers’ return - frequently at the same time. The design created a sacred space for a story steeped in Tibetan Buddhism, where families prayed and the Goddess of the Mountain danced. The space became a temple as 30 prayer candles adorned the perimeter of the stage.
Dear Edwina, University of Southern Maine
Dear Edwina is a kids musical, where the driveway of a suburban house in Michigan becomes a variety show theatre, for a singing-and-dancing play within a play. The deck of the house was housed the live band, and the audience in the theatre became the audience of their play.
Hammergirl, Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble
Hammergirl is a Norse saga of two estranged sisters trying to save their country. The stage became a ritual space using Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of life depicted on the floor, as well as runes on the backdrop, giving the play a cryptic esoteric feel. The centerpiece of the play is the Völuspá, the terrifying account of the destruction of the world as rendered by the seeress, pictured above.