Theatre content from Live Design: Sunday In The Park With George, inspired by the famous pointillist painting, A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte, by George Seurat,where the painting is reproduced in Act One, and “Chromolume #7”, a kinetic light sculpture is simulated in Act Two, is currently on Broadway. The revival, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Seurat in 1884 and his illegitimate grandson in 1984, is at the newly renovated Hudson Theatre. It was designed by Beowulf Boritt, sets; Ken Billington, lighting; Kai Harada, sound; Clint Ramos, costumes; and Christopher Ash and Tal Yarden, projections, and directed by Sarna Lapine. Read about the set design, lighting design, and costume design.
3 comments:
Sunday in the Park with George is one of my favorite shows! Unfortunately I was not able to see it last time I was in New York because Jake Gyllenhaal was in LA for a movie premiere so they cancelled a week of performances. (Can you imagine being that big of a star that they cancel a week... they didn't even do that for Sutton Foster in Anything Goes, they simply replaced her for a week with another star) I have a lot of mix opinions on the media design of this piece. Although I think it is important to the plot that the painting is hung somewhere on the set, I am not sure if it should be the focal point. Perhaps if we started the show with a blank canvas (as he alludes to many times) and then as he progresses on the painting slowly the canvas builds into the final product at the end of act one. Having that sort of shift just makes it more visually interesting, in my opinion. I have, however, seen videos of the media in act 2 and I believe it is beautifully done.
I worked on a production of Sunday in the Park with George at a small community theatre where the director wanted a 180 degree projection screen and front projection. All of this was on a 16’ square stage with a pit in the middle. It was a complete disaster and looked terrible, but I learned a lot about projections since I had never worked with them before. This group essentially did exactly what my media designer did, just professionally and well. I have seen a more impressive version of Sunday which revolved around projections that Catherine Moore showed me. That being said though, I do think that this is a better integration of projections into the show. It actually appears to be well integrated into the show; however, it is hard to tell from the photographs provided. I have to wonder how intentional that was to make the quality of the integration hard to interpret from this article.
I was fortunate enough to see this show over spring break, after sitting out in the cold for 6 hours, and it was truly one of the most beautifully designed shows that I have ever seen. The projection design was so beautiful and it was probably one of the best integrations of media that I have ever seen. It was a subtle use of the projection but the show could not have worked without it. I feel like so often what we try to do at CMU is use media so that the show can not exist without it, and the truth is that most of the time the media becomes a design element that is cool but that the show could survive without. I truly do not think that this show could have looked the way that it did without the expert use of media. It was so well coordinated with the other design elements, also beautiful and I was truly in awe at all of the costumes. This show was expertly designed and it had got to be a leader in how to use media in an effective and crucial way.
Post a Comment