Back to Top

This spring term, I took a stage lighting design class, and then practiced it through Northwestern’s Senior Dance Concert in May. I assisted the light design for one of seven or so acts. This one was a great experience for a starter like me.

Currently I am assistant light designing for a bigger show—a children’s mainstage musical called Lyle the Crocodile. It’s definitely going to be a different experience in this scale, and narrative driven. 

✖

Stop-motion animations made for Home Between Waves

An original play based on short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

As the space designer, I chose to incorporate projected stop-motion animations as part of the design and storytelling elements. They serve as transitional elements or ambient backdrops to suggest tone, setting, or imaginative moments.

-

In order of appearance:

  • Stages of Adjustment graph - opening of “Trail of Your Blood in the Snow” story
  • Clouds - while Billy and Nena travel in an airplane
  • “Imagine, a trail of your blood in the snow, all the way from Madrid to Paris. Wouldn’t that make a good song?” - while Nena’s finger bleeds unstoppably
  • The mountain graphs - opening of “Light is Like Water” story
  • Light bulbs break, and out! the light flows
  • The boys sail in the waves
  • Rain drops - during the “Maria Dos Prazeres” story

Materials include watercolor paint, sketch paper, tracing paper, wires, magazines, laser print cut-outs, and watercolor pencils.

✖

A segment from Home Between Waves, an original play.

✖

Home Between Waves

Directed by Abby Schwartz
Produced by Bessie Tockstein


Devised and performed by:
Bridget McNamara
Casey Hartley
Jake Degler
Josh Schwartz
Madeline Pereira
Nicola Rinow


Click here to view the projected animations.

✖

Here is how the space forHome Between Wavesturned out.

The key elements were cardboard boxes, fabric & light, and lightbulbs.

I chose to use the room diagonally, the so stage was in a triangular shape.

✖
This is a digital collage I made as a 2D set model early in the development for Home Between Waves, a play that went up Winter quarter 2012 at Northwestern. Home Between Waves is an original work inspired by a collection of short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Weaving non-fiction and original interviews with literature, the ensemble-based performance will explore the experience of shifting homes and building a life in a new place. This model was incorporating a lot of elements after doing ample research and having discussions with the director. We wanted to go for a collage look for the set, and given the space that is more or less a room than a stage, we called it more of an installation art than a set. The giant colorful objects like the rose, caterpillar, mountains, and tombstones are meant to be flat printouts on cardboard. The big white sheet in the middle is for the animation projection. Eventually, many of these elements got taken out to keep simplicity, and bring more attention to the performance.

This is a digital collage I made as a 2D set model early in the development for Home Between Waves, a play that went up Winter quarter 2012 at Northwestern.

Home Between Waves is an original work inspired by a collection of short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Weaving non-fiction and original interviews with literature, the ensemble-based performance will explore the experience of shifting homes and building a life in a new place.

This model was incorporating a lot of elements after doing ample research and having discussions with the director. We wanted to go for a collage look for the set, and given the space that is more or less a room than a stage, we called it more of an installation art than a set.

The giant colorful objects like the rose, caterpillar, mountains, and tombstones are meant to be flat printouts on cardboard. The big white sheet in the middle is for the animation projection.

Eventually, many of these elements got taken out to keep simplicity, and bring more attention to the performance.

✖
THEME BY PARTI