Designs
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Propel Charter Schools
Set and Props Designer, There’s No Place Like Home
During the 2023-2024 school year, I was a Teaching Artist through Pittsburgh Musical Theater for Propel Charter Schools. During my co-teacher and I’s time at Propel McKeesport, we worked on There’s No Place Like Home, a retelling of The Wizard of Oz that takes place in Pittsburgh.
The entire school worked together to achieve the finished project.
I designed everything to be very simple but effectively show multiple locations throughout the show. This was the first time that most of the students had ever worked on a set.
I instructed the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders as they worked on painting the backdrop and flats.
The 1st and 3rd graders worked on coloring flowers and birds as their contribution to the set. Once they were done, the 5th and 7th graders worked on cutting them out and attaching them to the set.
It was a very big collaborative effort between all of the students and I am so proud of all of them and the final product.
Youngstown State University
Projections Designer, Antigone
For my Senior Project at Youngstown State University, I designed the projections for their production of Antigone. After talking to Todd Dicken, the director of Antigone, he had told me that he wanted to incorporate projections that showed the impact of war and conflict throughout history. Set Design by Todd Dicken.
I did a lot of research on different wars throughout history, starting all the way back in Greek and Roman times and ending in Modern times. One of the biggest things that struck me while working on this project was how drastically different the images I was finding were; from when it was just paintings and artistic renderings of war to when the camera was developed, and actual pictures of war were being taken. There was a clear romanticization of war within the pottery and paintings, as if they were showing that there was conflict and fighting, without showing any of its bloodshed.
When, where, and how the images came into focus was deliberately planned so that it enhanced the scene without taking focus away from the action on stage.
After the images and their place in the show were chosen, I then uploaded all of them into QLab. Once they were uploaded, I focused them, sized them, and added them as cues in the program.
A unique challenge with this show was the surface I was projecting on. Where the audience members were sitting in the house changed the way that the images were seen since the pillars not only were far away from each other, but the two sides of the pillar met in the front at a 90 degree angle. To me, this was an allegory for the way that those who are not directly involved in war perceive the war or even receive information about it.
In total, there were 19 images used throughout the show. This was a very powerful show and I am so grateful that I was able to work on it.
