Stage Directions: The recent production of Mamma Mia at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre had a panoramic, curved sky design from the creative mind of scenic designer, Jason Sherwood. The drop measures 30-feet tall and 80 linear feet long and consists of 2,400 sq. ft. of layered voile and gauze fabrics. Atomic Designs built the custom piece, take a look at this time-lapse video of it being painted.
5 comments:
The sheer size of this drop is amazing. I thought it was really interesting that the fabric they used was so light and seemed kind of wrinkled. I liked that the choices in the materials for the drops were made based on their "itness" (as Susan would say) and how it related to the initial design concept. Looking at the renderings in the video, the feeling of endless sky and water that you get when you are on an island is truly apparent with the way the backdrop is so present in all the scenes, especially with the more "translucent" or broken up set pieces. That lighter fabric gives the drop that weightless and endless feeling that you get when looking out at the ocean that extends forever. It is really cool to see how the shop set up the drop in a arch to paint it, but I would have liked to see how the drop gets hung in the show, because the renderings in the video did not really show a curved drop in the set, and I would be interested in seeing how that was incorporated into the show.
This massive backdrop along with the new scenic design for Mamma Mia is actually very exciting to hear about for me-- Mamma Mia is one of my favorite shows, and I saw it on tour in my hometown of Philadelphia when it came through. Although the show itself was incredibly fun, I remember being a bit underwhelmed with the scenic design. I understand that shows touring can’t take every single aspect of the original show with them from theater to theater, but even so each element of the set felt pared down to the bare minimum. Each individual set piece was beautiful-- a blank, shifting chunk of a classic white Greek villa wall sat in the center of floorboards painted to look like old stones in front of a simple blue backdrop-- but the show itself is so colorful and flashy it felt like it was overtaking the set. The new design mentioned in the article seemed to encompass all of the stunning natural landscapes of Greece I experienced when I visited the country, such as its rich cerulean skyline and the sense of a constant presence of sky and water.
This feels like a fascinating take on the classic ideas of Mamma Mia. Hearing him describe the show and set I was surprised at some of the technical challenges that they have created and avoided for themselves by doing the show in this way. The quick timelapse of the drops creation was lacking a lot of information about the process that they went through in creating the drop and drop frame. It looks as though they have a flown portion on a curved frame and a lower portion that gets mounted to the vertical ribbed structure. It would be interesting to know if they intend this to become a rental or tourable production or if this will all end up in the trash when said and done. I always think that doing large drops are an excellent way to achieve the looks they are going for and I like that they stayed away from projections being the solution.
It always warms my heart a little to see a huge painted drop and understand the labor and hours that went into creating it. I read an article about the current applications of large drops like this, still being used in a few movies and shows, and I love that this amazing art is still being used for such large scale productions. I love that they are using some of the classic theatre technology for this revival because I think it will provide an interesting juxtaposition between classic techniques in a contemporary time period for a contemporary audience. I especially enjoyed seeing the process of this huge project being created, as I love process videos and things that allow me to see how things work and how they are created. I was especially intrigued by the curved nature of the drop and all of the challenges that go with that type of construction.
It is hard to figure out what is going on in this video to be honest. That is probably because I am not too familiar with painting processes, but also there is so much happening and the orientation is throwing me off. I think this is really cool and I am looking forward to seeing pictures of it fully installed under show lights. What I find even cooler is that Atomic is sharing their work so publically. Often I see that shops don't show processes because they don't own the design, and don't want to get in trouble with the designer, so I am curious how Atomic got permission to show this off. I wish there could be more videos like this because they are a good insight into the different ways different pieces can be built. For example, the curved jacks that hold the soft good are really cool and I never would have thought of that.
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