Director’s Blog: Working with professionally trained designers
Saturday, August 16th, 2008For Raconteur Theatre’s debut production After the Afterglow, we relied upon Board Members and personal friends to design the set, lights, costumes and sound. Each of the designers brought experience, creativity and expertise to the table and our final product was great. Not all of those designers were available for our second production so we have had to widen our circle of participants. Luckily two new designers have teamed up with the Raconteur production team for Ghosts and my experience with them has been nothing but positive.
I was delighted when Scenic Designer Richard May sent me photos of a “white model” a couple days after joining the Ghosts design team. This 3D scaled model gave me a clear picture of his concept so we could have a detailed discussion about what would work and what would need to change.
I was equally pleased and impressed during my first meeting with Costume Designer Jaylene Henderson. Instead of just asking what I wanted, she presented me a colorful array of sketches, fabric swatches and printouts of period costumes. We discussed details of fabric colors, dress lines and shoes. I came away from the meeting excited about the beautiful costumes I could actually envision. Then, after just a week, Jaylene sent me photos of the skirt she had already started sewing!
It feels greatto have designs before we’ve even started rehearsals. Richard and Jaylene are raising the bar of our design standards, setting a wonderful example for the rest of us. This is how we should be designing shows. Drawings, renderings, models, fabric swatches - visual representations of any kind are essential to a successful design process!
-Tricia Jones
Director, Ghosts
Running October 9 - 25, 2008 in Columbus, OH. Details at http://raconteurtheatre.com
