www.broadwayworld.com: Set and production designer Adam Koch has designed sets for over 50 productions worldwide, including A Wonderful World at the Colony Theatre, Beauty and the Beast at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story at
The Rev Theatre Co., Chicago at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Next to Normal at the Westport Country Playhouse, Our Brother's Son at Signature Theatre, and many more.
4 comments:
Something I have appreciated seeing from the industry this past year has been seeing everyone explore how truly flexible they could be. Designing sets for theater could get pretty repetitive depending on what type of jobs you can book. Oftentimes, it seems like the constraints of a proscenium-like theater are all you could work around with. Having sets be designed specifically for them being outdoors, and for them to be at a particular location or time of day even, sounds very intriguing to any theatergoer. Not to say that designing for one modality is more difficult than designing for another, but they both have their different challenges. I know I would find the weather aspect the hardest one. There are so many moving elements that you wouldn’t normally have to worry about, like rain, wind, what have you. This does serve as a reminder that theater will prevail, which I find very inspiring.
I thought his design process was very interesting. He said not to be afraid to give the director or producer exactly what they want. Thats definitely not what i have done in the past. For one of the biggestest shows i did, i completly ignored what my director saud he envisioned and i did what i want. It was a rsk but it ended up paying iff. In the real world its probably really smart to do what they want, especially if they have a vdry clear idea. Once you start building a name for yourself, you will be given a lot of freedom. As someone who doesnt like musixals as much as straightplaus, i thought his comment about music really helped me see musicals in a different way. He tres to make the composition of the music into a set, to "make the invisible visible for the audience. That's why different musicals should look completely different." He meantions few in the article, but it would be interesting to know what the main differences are when designing for an outdoor vs indoor play.
Adam Koch's site-specific work has always been fascinating to me (I remember watching a short documentary about his Titanic design at Serenbe Playhouse probably four years ago), but the thing I think I've always assumed about outdoor or site specific theatre is that it would be done in the summer, or at least in a hospitable climate. I really liked the quote about the design and construction of cathedrals being "music made visible," and then trying to do a similar thing with the script that he's working on at the time. Cathedrals have always been wondrous and fascinating to me, and I think now you automatically correlate the Gothic architecture with the grand organ music, but that comes from hundreds of years of that connection and cultural recognition. How can you create a similar feeling or gut reaction to a score or script that the audience may be hearing for the first time?
What most excites me about this article is Koch’s connection to music as a designer. I feel like I also have a very strong connection to music and I almost never start an art piece without some musical inspiration. Choosing a song or a soundtrack provides me with a framework for my art, so it is extremely validating to see a professional enthuse about finding inspiration in the same way I do. This section just struck a personal chord with me and it made me happy that I chose to pursue scenic design as an artist. What I also liked about this article is how Koch pointed out the technicalities of working outdoors with restrictions toward the sound and lighting, for example. He expresses that the key is collaboration, as it always is in theater. One of my favorite aspects about theater is the collaborative element and problem solving that comes with achieving what multiple parties need to achieve. And in the end, you present a tangible product, the personification of that hard work that can be enjoyed by many. This article just touched on a lot of reasons I chose to do theater, and it is one of my favorite articles that I have read in a while, just based on how much I connected with it.
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