Episode 3 (Part 1): Research

When you hear the word “research” it might bring to mind flipping through pages and pages of books and articles, grabbing paragraphs and sentences that you can appropriately cite in your bibliography of a very organized paper. Or perhaps you consider it more scientifically; running trials and experiments, gathering data to support your hypothesis.

For a designer, research is somewhat like that. Books are often involved and there is definitely a lot of reading. We are also on the hunt to gather data to prove a hypothesis; in this case, that a design thesis can work. However, we aren’t building a bibliography, but a planet. For the scenic designer, we are mostly looking for images that resonate with what we are thinking about for our “vision” of the play.

Think of each script kind of like that moment in the movie Monster’s Inc. where Sully, Mike, and Boo come through the conveyor belt and see thousands upon thousands of doors before them. Each script holds a multiverse of options, or doors, that the team can open and explore in order to communicate the story. Researching for the designer is the moment where we can gleefully open a whole bunch of doors and explore their possibilities, finding the paths that will ultimately serve our needs best for this project.

Image from the movie Monster’s Inc. (Disney and Pixar)

Now, it’s very important to understand that in American theatre the vision is very heavily influenced by one individual; the director. The relationship between director and designer is absolutely crucial for creating a cohesive design. For me, my focus is making sure that I am an ally to the director, that I am doing everything I can to listen to their wants and needs and then translate that into a design that will satisfy aesthetic and function.

In the case of Little Shop, Dexter was very clear about two things from the beginning:

-He wanted the show to be set in the 80’s

- He was very strongly inspired by B-Movies, particularly horror movies from that era. He also said he really liked the aesthetic and feel of the Netflix series Stranger Things.

80’s Horror Movie Poster Collage (not original to this post’s author)

Stranger Things Poster used for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights (not original to this post’s author)

So, now I toddle off my merry way to research. Not only is researching necessary for me to start moving my own thoughts on how things should look and feel, but this is the way I can start sharing language of the world with my director. It’s always an interesting dance because as a designer, I can see the world in so many potential pictures moving at a thousand miles an hour for every moment; endless possibilities and doors. For the director, they need a way to see what I’m seeing so they can decide if what I have to offer can work with how they want to move bodies in that space. We have to find a door into a world that works for all; so I look for images that accurately portray the paths I think might work, and then the director picks which one we will walk.

Episode 1: The Script

“…a picture is worth a thousand words, make sure they’re the playwrights.”

Wendall Harrington

First page of text from my script of Little Shop

Words on a page, the first parameters for building a world.

Now, there are some fundamental tools of script analysis that most theatre artists are equipped to use regardless of focus. I’m not going to go through those here because this is a design-centric theatre tale. Suffice it to say, if you are interested in such things, do look up David Balls book Backwards and Forwards.

How do I personally go about script analysis specifically for design? Well, I go in with a foundational question: what do we need to tell the story? Some concrete things that I look for in every script to start helping flesh that answer are:

• Stage Directions (***Please note, the stage directions are a little like the pirate’s code in that they are more like “guidelines.” Sometimes an estate or still living playwright will rigidly dictate that stage directions can’t be altered in any production. More often, however, one is allowed to treat them with a degree of discretion. I tend to look at them to get an idea of how the progenitor originally conceptualized a moment, and because they sometimes subsequently incite what I discuss in the next bullet…)

• What is said by the characters (This is a little less elastic then stage directions, but still can be interpreted with some discretion. Ex: a character may say, “Would you look at the time‽” which could mean there is a clock in view…or maybe it’s through a doorway to a room leading offstage, or a wristwatch…again, definitely more pressing then the stage directions, but still some room to wiggle depending on what the director is looking for in the moment.)

I usually go by a rule of three reads at least when I get a script. The first read: try and just read the piece for what it is (don’t turn on the design brain, just react to the piece as is). Second time: I start notating any words I don’t know, putting in questions (does the director see this as inside or outside? Clarify how we want to make this work etc.). The third time is where I’ll start sketching little thumbnails in the margins and getting a little more designer-y (ex. how can we show the contrast of how this character is processing their inner darkness in this moment of death as opposed to their complete jubilation later when they return from the depths of despair….yeah, my teenage anxt self can come back in my notes, don’t judge).

Soooo, Little Shop of Horrors is a wild show with a wild script to match. Musicals, to start, already present their own special challenges. They often have:

• Multiple locations

• You have to shift through to those locations very quickly and seamlessly because, tempo people!

• You have to style the world so that it’s a place where people believably express themselves through song on a regular basis.

• Often there is a large-ish cast (**Little Shop is somewhat an exception here. We were going to have 12 people in our production, but that was because we fleshed out a small ensemble. I have seen the show done with just 8 people).

• Practically, you have make sure the scenery supports the action and the choreography.

Little Shop has all these fun things plus one teeny tiny extra thing; A VERY LARGE AND VERY ACTIVE PUPPET.

To be specific (in our show) four puppets. Three out of those four need to very strongly interact with the set. Especially the final puppet, the largest one that has to successfully eat three people live onstage (one of whom is running at full speed into it with a machete, but, meh, details) safely and effectively. This isn’t even getting into the practicality of how we seamlessly move these various puppets on and offstage without audience seeing the moves…nope we aren’t even close to thinking about that yet.

At the point where I got through my three readings of the script, I found myself of two minds.

The first:

UMMMMMMMMM………..

And the second:

EEEEEEEE!!!!!

This is an iconic musical. This is one that holds a warm place in the hearts of many, including my own. The music is just good!! I mean, it has so few reprisals, the whole show is full of new songs that span the gamut in style and yet all work beautifully. The plot is macabre and utterly ridiculous, but it does beg the questions that are close and uncomfortable; how far would you go to gain financial security? To never have to worry about anything ever again? To be adored and held in esteem for no other reason than you own something unique? How far would you go to escape poverty, abuse, and danger to achieve the promise of love, prosperity, and a bright future? The show is whimsical, but it’s not fluffy.

This is where I got to in my analysis of the script. I had some ideas about what we were going to need. But, before I could clarify and move on I obviously had very important people I needed to start being in close concert with from here on out; the director and the rest of the creative team.