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Produced by Tantrum Theater
Playwright: Jacqueline Lawton
Director: JaMeeka Holloway
Scenic Design: C. David Russell
Costume Design: Sabrina Bianca Guillaume
Lighting Design: Maddy Hebert
Sound Design: Sharath Patel
Music Director: Melissa Brobeck
Chorography: Travis Gatling
Wigs and Hair: Jerrilynn Lanier Duckworth
Technical Direction: Luis Silva
Lead Props: Duck Bracey
Stage Manager: Natalie Mathis
Edward and Mattie Berry, the only Black business owners in Athens, had established, by 1912, one of the finest hotels in Ohio.
The 2022 play was commissioned by Tantrum Theater to highlight this vital chapter of Black history in Athens. My aim was to recreate the grandeur of the Berry Hotel in this era. Using a historical fiction approach to the scenic design, I used the few extant images of the hotel alongside additional period details to create the immersive world of the Berry.
A turntable was employed center stage to bring us to the various sites within the hotel.
“The building’s history was erased through gentrification and general decline,” Lawton said. Thanks to the work of set designer C. David Russell, the local community will be able to imagine what it was like to enter the Berry. “When folks walk into that theater, they will feel like they are walking into the Berry,” Holloway said. “The opulence, the glamor, the authenticity and the care around detail.”
Athens County Independent .com, From an interview with playwright Jacqueline E. Lawton and director JaMeeka Halloway.
setting up for Roosevelt visit, photo credit C. David Russell
1/4”=1’ scale model
period postcard research image
main lobby, photo credit: C. David Russell
hotel lobby, photo credit: C. David Russell
photo credit: C. David Russell
Mr Berry’s office, photo credit: C. David Russell
office , photo credit Daniel King
Roosevelt vist, photo credit: C. David Russell
Roosevelt dinner, photo credit: C. David Russell
Ballroom, photo credit: C. David Russell
painter’s elevation of the floor
painter’s elevation lobby walls
TAMMY FAYE’S FINAL AUDITION, Scenic and Costume Design
By: Merri Biechler
Tantrum Theater, Dublin, Ohio
Directed by Dennis Lee Delaney
Lighting Design : Daniel Winters
Sound Design: Dennis Lee Delaney
The premiere play by Merri Biechler depicts Tammy Faye Bakker’s final hours, flowing between life and death. Shifting between reality, memory, and revelation, Tammy glides in and out of television studios, her bedroom, and the internal spaces of her thoughts and dreams. I designed a space that was an abstracted television studio that in part doubles as a domestic interior. We used live feed video to further engage the audience and bring them into the world of early televangelism . The fanciful cloud treatment of the stage floor and the pearlescent scenic details further immersed the audience in Tammy’s heavenly fever dream.
photo: Glenn Pepe
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, Scenic Design
Book and lyrics By Howard Ashman, Music By Alan Menken
Tantrum Theater, Dublin, Ohio
Directed by: Daniel C. Dennis
Choreographer: Christi Camper Moore
Lighting: Michael Lincoln
Costumes: Helene Siebrits
Sound: Chet Miller
Puppets: Monkey Boys
In this homage to mid-century B movies, I referenced the original 1960’s black and white film. The musical gradually moved from black & white to color as the killer plants started to devour the world.
THE PATSY, Scenic Design
by: Greg Leaming, translated and adapted from Georges Feydeau's "Le Dindon"
Resident Ensemble Players, Newark, Delaware
Directed by: Steve Tague
Lighting Design: Matt Richards
Costume Design: Martha Haley
We chose to realize three distinct rooms in this world premiere production.
Pre-Art Deco shapes and details were used to bring us into the world of 1913 Paris.
I referenced the illustrations of George Barbier to create environments with a graphic quality.
The pink, black, and gold palette was a consistent element whether we were in Vatelin’s elegant apartment, the seedy Hotel Ultimus, or Redillon’s upscale bachelor pad.
The jigsaw puzzle design sustained the tension with the measured placement of thirteen doors. Each door possessed the comic potential held between the hidden and the revealed, and served as a driving force to push characters together or apart.
photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
Photo Paul Cerro
Photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
MACBETH, Scenic and Puppet Design
By William Shakespeare
Resident Ensemble Players, Newark, Delaware
Directed by Leslie Reidel
Lighting Design: Thomas Hase
Costume Design: Martha Hally
Sound Design: Eileen Smitheimer
In this stylized version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, puppets were used for the Witches, as well as Banquo’s Ghost and Macduff’s son. The armies were indicated with shadow effects and illustrated on banners. As scenic designer, I was charged with creating an “Elizabethan theatrical machine” to propel the horrific, fast-paced story.
The set consisted of a four-sided unit oriented at different angles to suggest distinct Scottish locations. This actor-driven sculptural unit was designed to spin easily in either direction. The revolving motion of the set served to illustrate Macbeth’s world as it spiraled out of control.
I chose to surface the unit with wood planking to evoke the old world while maintaining a contemporary visual attitude. The theatrical machine included a massive angled surface to suggest the exterior. Another element included an above space with doorways for interior scenes.
puppets designed by C. David Russell
ANGELS IN AMERICA, Scenic Design
By Tony Kushner
Resident Ensemble Players, Newark, Delaware
Directed by: Steve Tague
Lighting Design: Matt Richards
Costume Design: Kim Sorenson
Sound Design: John Stovieck
For Tony Kushner’s “gay Fantasia,” I designed a vast blue room as the vessel of multiple scenes.. In this minimal environment I employed the use of very specific furniture choices to distinctly render the scenes. I also designed a huge skylight center stage to hint at a New York world and to serve as the faming device of the show.
Two open doorways, designed as cutouts from the back wall of the stage, were employed regularly as thresholds. They were traversed solely by fantasy and spectral characters who, by crossing into the central room, embodied the world of the play.
Photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
photo C.David Russell
photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
Photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
photo Paul Cerro
THE MOUSETRAP, Scenic and Costume Design
By: Agatha Christie
Resident Ensemble Players, Newark, Delaware
Directed by: Steve Tague
Lighting Design: Matt Richards
Sound Design: Eileen Smitheimer
I designed Monkswell Manor to serve as an additional character in the Agatha Christie mystery thriller.
Numerous doorways, thresholds and passages served as avenues of suspense and dramatic tension, through which players, in a dynamic series of configurations, arrived and departed.
Costumes were designed to complement the environment and to give a distinctive flare to each character.
1/2" scale model
Hay Fever
by: Noel Coward
Produced by: PTTP /Resident Ensemble Players, University of Delaware
Directed by: Jack Going
Lighting Design by: Matt Richards
Costumes by: Georgia Lee
by: Tom Stoppard
Produced by: PTTP University of Delaware
Directed by: Jewel Walker
2002
INTIMATE APPAREL, Scenic Design
By: Lynn Nottage
Produced By: Ohio University
Directed By: Shelley Delaney
Lighting Design: Dan Winters
Costume Design: Natalia de la Torre
This show occurs in five distinct bedrooms at the turn of Twentieth Century. The piece is episodic in nature and needs to flow rapidly between scenes and locations. In order to facilitate the seamless action I chose to collage all of the space together so that Esther could navigate her world with ease.
As a starting point I referenced Joseph Cornell ‘s boxes . This gave me the ability to distinctly render each bedroom relating to the specifics of period, class and character. I placed Esther’s room in the center of the world as the space that she remained tethered to throughout the piece.
The walls were constructed of muslin so that they could be backlit. This provided an evocative glow and helped delineate each space as we transitioned from one to the next.
Produced by: Ohio University, April 2014
Directed by: Shelley Delaney
Scenic Design: C. David Russell
Lighting Design: Felicia Hall
Costume Design: Renee Garcia
Sound Design: Dan Baker
Music Direction: Dan Dennis
The forest of Arden is not a literal forest. Shakespeare used the construct of the forest as a place where magic can happen. In As You Like It, magical transformations occur; villains are converted, gender is fluid, and the journey of the play mirrors the journey of the world.
We wanted the characters and the audience to be enveloped into the world of the play. To that end, we introduced the elemental forces of nature through sound, lighting, falling leaves and blossoms, and Orlando’s love letters. The characters, transformed by the environment, encountered the natural world as a place of wonder.
The set consisted of a series of curvilinear ramps and levels that tracked the action and flow of the play, with its quicksilver transitions and overlapping scene changes. The Forum Theater was transformed from a flat level thrust stage, to an asymmetrical off-kilter, winding pathway. The spiraling set symbolized the whirlwind of the lives of the characters. The inclusion of aspects of the natural world, such as tree branches and large root bulbs, alongside expanded steel structures, illustrated a crossover space that contained aspects of multiple contexts of interior and exterior places. It was a liminal space where people met with adversity and were changed in the process.
As You Like It 2014
THE ROVER, Scenic Design
By: Aphra Behn
Produced By: Ohio University
Directed By: Brian Evans
Lighting Design: Derek Keifer
Costume Design: Kelly Myers
Sound Design: C.J. Whitaker
The Rover takes place at Carnival time; a time where the notion of disguise and deceit is in the air. The characters progress through the piece, often in disguise, navigating the slippery world of love and identity.
The Scenery needed to be active as the characters. I conceived the set to have the maze like quality of ancient Italian cities; so the characters were given ample opportunity to move throughout the city, have romantic encounters, hide and fight.
There are numerous scenes, with both interiors and exteriors that need to change instantaneously from one location to the next and sometimes back again. To facilitate this I chose the Grecian/ Renaissance theatrical device spinning periactoi, but changed them from the traditional 3 sided units to four sided ones. I also used another Renaissance device of false perspective to add dimension and depth. The whirling scenery relates to the topsy-turvy swashbuckling journey of the characters. The material choice of Corefute plastic added translucent element to the world.
a fight for love
Eurydice
By: Sarah Ruhl
Produced By: Ohio University
Directed by: Dennis Delaney
Costume Design: Kurt Tiede
Lighting Design: Molly Tiede
Sound Design: Matthew Wilson
Projection Design: Sarah Watson
In Sarah Ruhl’s contemporary retelling of the Orpheus myth from the perspective of his wife, Eurydice, surreal and evocative imagery illustrates themes of love and loss.
Recurring images of water, string, and the rusty dripping pipes of the underworld were used to realize Ruhl’s story. Water effects brought a sensual quality to the piece. The unit set was comprised of a series of raked platforms that created a dynamic path of action to lead the characters through the real world and the Underworld.
The key image was the river that cut its way through the set and sliced away the memories of the characters.