Southwestern University Sarofim Open Air Theater

About The Project

Album, by David Rimmer, is about the coming of age of four struggling teens dealing with sexual pressure in the sixties. This play takes us on a turbulent ride through the years of their lives with music by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys as a clever counterpoint to the confusion each character feels.

​

I started this research by looking at what the playwright wrote in the script. In the script it called for blue lighting six times. My initial research took me to a psychology paper about the association of color to emotion and the different theories that have been produced. From there, my color choices became based on the color and shades of blue.

​

I was not able to get in to the theatre space to program the lights for the show. I used the visualization program Capture 2018 to cue the show. This program allowed me to work with tools that cut down on theoretical guess work and opened up the team to explore collaboratively about the space. In the renderings I decided to use 51 ETC Colorsource Deep Blue fixtures. This allowed me to explore options with colors, texture, and angles. 

​

Due to COVID-19 pandemic we delayed the project and ultimately moved it to an outdoor space. I had to quickly adapt the arena design to a open air proscenium show. The design concept of blues and night was elevated because of the outdoor setting. Quickly adapting to new stages and new protocols made me explore new technologies and become more aware of the needs of different spaces.