Squad Pod: #2 A Chat with Assistant Scenic Designers (Little Shop of Horrors)

Duration: 40 Min (wish)

Duration: 11 MIN (ish)

Today is a bit of a sad day considering today would have been opening night for Little Shop of Horrors. Most days I’m at peace with events, but today feels a little more gray and upsetting. Thus, I’m partly processing that sadness with a special double feature of Squad Pod. Standby for copious amounts of gushing.

Today I feature my two incredible assistants, Amber Meadows and Ray Dondero. I don’t think I can possibly convey just how incredible these two women are as people, and how much they did to make this process a success. Assistants are absolutely the unsung ninja heroes of the design community. While the designer is busy producing content and determining how things are going to work, the assistants are a whirlwind of skilled activity producing the materials that showcase the designer’s thoughts. In my own work, I tend to load my assistants with a lot of model building and keeping after the administration on the props.

The first chat posted is with my Lead Assistant (/Associate/Lifesaver/ Boss Sprout) Amber Meadows. Truly, this woman is a marvel, and a recent friendship has grown deep and fast between us. If there is one person I knew I could rely on with full confidence and no reservation, it’s Amber. She is a first year grad student, an incredibly gifted artist, and wonderful friend. Check out her website at ambermeadowsdesign , she is going places!

Fave Pic of Amber and myself

Early Version of the Shop Built by Amber (Exterior)

Early Version of the Shop Built by Amber (Interior)

Closeup of Dentist Office Unit/ Unit and Chair kitted and built by Amber

Closeup of Final Shop/ Shop, and many of those tiny little bitty pieces were built/colored/painted/applied with very careful tweezer work by Amber

Disclaimers, Clarifications, and Corrections: These recordings are done as informal and unedited chats among friends and colleagues and therefore there are various sound quality issues that one would expect with an amateur recording (i.e. sound garble, having to stop and start because neighbors are loud etc.). Also, we carried out all model making tasks for this project SAFELY AND WITHOUT INCIDENT. Amber and I definitely make light of past mistakes where we had minor mishaps with our Exacto knives, but that was not the case in this process.

In this Episode of KP Gaffe/s: You all are now aural witnesses of one of the strangest crossed wires in my brain; every time I try to reference the movie Spinal Tap I always say Full Metal Jacket instead. I know this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever; they are two movies completely void of any similarity to each other that would excuse the mixup. Still, it happens to me every single time I try and say it and I have no explanation. So enjoy one of the many strange quirks that can come out in a conversation with me.

The next recording is a chat with my second assistant, Ray Dondero (/Superhero/Ninja Sprout). Ray and I go way back by school standards because she had been my assistant on the show right before Little Shop. That show was Wolves and we made a really fantastic team. Ray is junior working towards her BFA and she is lightening quick with everything I throw at her. Model work iss always accomplished cleanly and with care, and she did a lot of the leg work with props on both shows. Keep in mind that the props book she put together for Little Shop was a little over 60 pages and that was on top of other projects I gave her. She also accomplished some beautiful mockups of initial set dressing ideas in photoshop using early model photos. Working with Ray on my team was just as fantastic as the first time around and I highly recommend checking out her website raydondero and keeping an eye out for her on the scene as well!

A shot of me and my lovely assistant from the opening night of our first show working together Wolves

Early Dentist Unit/ Unit and Lamp built by Ray

Set Dressing Mockup/ Model staged by Ray and then she used Photoshop to place in other details and labels

Set Dressing Mockup for Act 2/ Ray used the same process described in the previous caption

Disclaimers, Clarifications, and Corrections: Aside from reiterating the earlier disclaimers, keep in mind that this particular chat was the very first recording I made. There is definitely an element of me being a little fumbly. I want to thank Ray for her enduring patience and kindness, and being willing to play the guinea pig for this part of the project.

Episode 2: Meet the Squad (Code Name: The Creative Team)

Every production consists of a team. For the most part, we are a shifting demographic of team members depending on the particular production. The portion of the team that is made up mainly of the director and designers is often referred to as the “creative team.” Obvs that word could and should extend to many practitioners in the making of a piece of theatre. However, for the sake of simplicity, all the individuals discussed in this post will be referred to collectively as the Creative Team. I’m including the technical director in this because she is also a fellow graduate student, and she definitely had a great deal of input that helped inform creative decisions. Similar reasoning led me to also include our master electrician. So, all readers of all ages, meet one of the best squads I have had the privilege of working with in my short career so far:

***A note about Code Names: These are entirely in my own mind and completely made up for my own brain paths. I never referred to/addressed these incredible artists by anything other than the name they preferred and I hope they don’t mind that I gave them all epic aliases in my own mind.

*** Another note: With the exception of our director and our sound designer, all the participants on this team are current students at UConn as of the writing of this post.

Director: Dexter

Code Name: The Captain

Team Scenic Design:

Scenic Designer: KP

Code Name: Buckle Up Buttercup

Website: KPEZ Designs// Instagram: @kpezdesign

Lead Assistant/Associate: Amber Meadows

Code Name: Boss Sprout

Instagram: @ambermdwsdesign

Assistant: Ray

Code Name: Ninja Sprout

Website: Ray Dondero



Team Puppetry:

Designer: Will

Code Name: Dr. Frankenstein

Audrey 2 Puppet Performer/Operator/Co-designer/ Dramaturg: Rob

Code Name: IT’s Alive!

Team Costume:



Designer: Jess

Code Name: Princess of Making you Look Excellent

Website: Jessica Haswell Designs

Assistant: Brittny

Code Name: Mother of Good Vibes

Website: Brittny Mahan Costume Design

Team Lighting:

Designer: Sam

Code Name: All Them Saturated Colors

Website: SJB Lighting Design

Lead Assistant: Chandler

Code Name: Queen (Nuff Said)

Assistant: Kelly

Code Name: Maglite

Website: Kelly Daigneault Portfolio

Master Electrician: Jacob

Code Name: Mighty Mouse

Website: Jacob Sikorski// Instagram: @sikorskidesign

Team Sound:

Designer: Hide

Code Name: Rockstar

**This picture is a poor substitute for the actual subject, but hope you enjoy anyway!



Associate in Charge of Content: Mack

Code Name: Classy Collector

Social Media Info:

Website: MLG Design// Instagram: @mlg__designs

Associate in Charge of Systems: Daniel

Code Name: Wave Master

**This picture is a poor substitute for the actual subject, but hope you enjoy anyway!

Team Technical Direction:

Technical Director: Kimberly

Code Name: Makes It Happen



Assistant: Gavin

Code Name: The Dash

Social Media Info:

Instagram: @gav_bparker

We spent many hours working together to make a show that was going to be an excellent ride. You will definitely hear more about and from the team as we continue forward. Everything about a good piece of theatre is rooted in good communication and teamwork. Couldn’t have asked to be apart of a better team for this project.