Overview

I created a scenic design package for Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins in April 2017. The final design package includes a color model for all 17 scenes, stage and set drafting, a concept collage, and a paint elevation.

Description

Much of my inspiration for my design for Assassins was inspired a guest speaker’s talks about projections. I decided to build off the projection descriptions in the script and create my own mockups of projections for the show. The projections are large to fit the Playhouse Theatre inside the Krannert Center, and they give the sense of towering over the scene with enormous size and scale. I intentionally decided to make the projection pictures larger than they would be in real life because I wanted the actors to seem smaller in comparison. Characters such as John Wilkes Booth have become almost larger-than-life villains, so I wanted to invert that perspective and challenge the audience to view these people in a different way.

I also decided to play with the theme of what it means to be an American. All the assassins believe they have the inalienable right to their version of happiness, and they act in a way that serves their entitled and destructive visions. I reflected their twisted version of American history and ideals with the flipped American flags. Each of the five flags is from the time periods of the assassinations or assassination attempts. The flags appear when the assassins talk about their American dream or wanting their prize.

Finally, I made the carnival setting subtle but ever-present in the show. Putting the red and white bunting with string lights over the stage makes the interaction of different people over several time periods much more believable. The wood flooring can be used in any scene and still gives the feeling of being somewhere else away from the performance space. I drew a lot from my research of red, yellow, and blue carnival bulb lights. I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of a dark, ominous carnival onstage.

Pictures