The Look

Another post from the intrepid Isaac and Matt...

After we finished our first draft of Dream Machines, we realized that the design work posed some significant challenges: How do we create a vivid and dynamic world of bikes, planes, trains and automobiles that will delight our audiences visually, break down to fit in a compact space, travel easily, stand up to years of use, and still come in at a cost of just under one month's rent in a New York City apartment? The answers came bit by bit, but we got there eventually, thanks in no small part to our incomparable design team: Travis McHale (sets) and Ren LaDassor (costumes).
An essential theme of Dream Machines is the wondrous and limitless power of imagination. By embracing this theme--along with our budget--we found that simple, suggestive elements, such as a stick, an umbrella, or a patch of fabric, could not only be used successfully to represent far more elaborate and complex contraptions, but were much more exciting than the fully realized machines, because they invited all of us--creative team, performers, and audience alike--to exercise our own imaginations, and in so doing, come to recognize the imagination’s thrilling and unending potential.
In our meetings with Ren and Travis, we worked together to push our imaginations further: "If we flip that skirt over, can it become a bird's wing?" "If we turn a piece of furniture around, can it become a hill in Kitty Hawk?" "If we manipulate that fabric just the right way, can it become a plane soaring through the air?" These questions lead to more questions and to some inventive and extremely exciting solutions for our story. To get there, it took diligence, determination, resourcefulness, and above all, imagination.
The magic of design work is in the details. Every detail of the color, composition, and construction of every set and costume piece holds the potential to express our vision more fully and richly. For example, Dream Machines will be performed against a painted background of a cloudy blue sky, but precisely what color should the blue sky be? How many clouds, and what kind? Are they full of rain, with a storm brewing, or are they light and wispy, fading gently into the horizon? Are they perhaps growing in size as they rise further up, to create perspective that makes them appear to be moving away from us, suggesting an undiscovered road of mystery waiting in the sky? Detailed, specific and investigative questions like these have helped us to maximize the storytelling impact of every design element.
With rehearsals starting in about a month, our work with the designers has reached a point where we need our cast to complete the picture, and the discoveries we make in rehearsal will inform the design even further.
Until the next time, Dream on.
Isaac and Matt