Scenic Design for WONDERFUL TOWn

                  Wonderful Town is a bright, fun musical, written in the 1950’s, about a couple of sisters from Ohio coming to New York to make it in the big city in the 1930’s.  The show is full of high energy dance numbers and flashy songs, and the setting skips from Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, to the interior of a run down basement apartment, to office interiors and the inside of a seedy nightclub.  For this show, we had a very quick turnaround from the beginning of build to opening, and it was important to make the most impact with little available time.  I was drawn to the exciting colors and lights that were becoming popular at the time, and wanted to make the transitions from one locations to another as seamless as possible.  I wanted to portray the essence of the city with a more abstract, representational aesthetic, using bright colors and representational shapes to build out cityscape.  The open framing helped to give the impression of buildings continuing up into the sky, while allowing the lighting to change the translucent backdrop as the mood changed.

Culbreth Theater

Presented by UVa Drama, Spring 2015
Directed by Robert Chapel       Technical Direction by Austin Manning       Lighting Design by Steven Spera       Costume Design by Haley Tynes       Production Photos by Michael Bailey

Backdrop designed by Katie Bell Springman