Director: Ron van Lieu

Scenery Design: Scott Holdredge

Costume Design: Joy Bar

This was my first show my third year at NYU and one of my favorite collaborations. At our first meeting, Ron said that he wanted a landscape. "A vast space, with two dots on the horizon," if we could get closer, we would notice that they were people. Scott did a quick sketch that ended up looking much like the final piece and off we went. When we added the truck a few weeks later as the physical barrier between the two families, solving a scenic problem, so many lighting issues were solved at the same time, not only was it a great looming spectre of Jake's father, the hazard lights gave me something kinetic to start the show with as well as preventing light from spilling over to the other area. My main concept then centered around the idea of complete separation of these two families, just lighting one half of the stage at a time until the end of the piece, when a connection is finally made, when I lit up the entire space, including a highlight along the back edge.

The process was simply great. I found Ron to be a great director, pointing you towards what he was looking for and never actually saying it, it was up to us as individuals to bring our talents to be used. He took what we brought him and helped merge his initial ideas with whatever we came up with. Scott was fantastic, working with him from very early on helped us determine what we wanted the final look of the piece to be like, which helped both of us out. And Joy's costume work helped me decide what color to help accent certain characters. I had been looking for a way to ensure that we didn't lose Meg at the final moment when we saw the entire stage for the first time and her costume choice determined the color that would help accentuate the pink flowers on her nightgown.

Design statement

Lighting design questions

Research photos

Working model photos

Drafting and magic sheets

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