IF/THEN
SCENIC DESIGN - CWRU FOOTLIGHTERS - CARLTON COMMONS
If/Then was put on by the CWRU Footlighters, a fully student-run musical theater troupe at Case Western Reserve University. Creating a space that felt both like New York City but also like it could be many interiors and exteriors resulted in the design of many back-lit flats and two hexagonal moving platforms.
Director: Paulina Martz | Costume Designer: Maggie Tyma | Scenic Painter: Michelle Rackish
Pictures courtesy of Noah Listgarten
If/Then was a labor of love. Set in many many many different locations in New York, it needed to convey that feeling while still staying as transmutable as possible.
This was achieved through two separate hexagonal platforms. They were hexagons to allow just that bit more space while allowing for only 4 poles.
Since If/Then deals with two different story lines surrounding one woman’s life making sure the audience understood who’s story we were on at which time was vastly important. This was achieved through many things, but mostly through color. And with the New York City skyline as inspiration, it wasn’t hard to figure out where to put that color. 1,508 rectangles later, and we had our skyline.
Since much of the show and much of the set relied on these lights I took a much more hands on approach with the lighting.
There were 17 people in this cast, and as such we needed additional levels, but didn’t want to add anything that would be too out of the ordinary or too large, which is where the idea for the three bridges came in. Symmetry was also very important to the show’s conceit of allowing two parallel moments to be shown on stage. Our hexagons allowed for moments of asymmetry.