:Insert Poignant and Witty Blog Title Here:: Ruined

This picture is the inspiration for my ‘director’s unifying vision.’ I found it by Googling the word ‘ruined.’ The picture represents both my idea for the play, that war ruins everything, and my subject of perseverance. My idea for the play is represented by everything in the photo being dirty, broken, and ruined; but perseverance shines through, as the two high heels in the photo seem to be all together, even though they are also a little dirty, involved almost. My entire production would be representative of this picture and its underlying themes.

The performance location:

My production of Ruined would be held at the Alhambra Dinner Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. I chose Florida because it sees a lot of tourists, as well as a really wide spectrum of people. I chose this theater because it was the perfect setup for how I want my production. The stage is kind of a three-quarter thrust, but it’s also kind of not a stage, as it blends into the rest of the room. I also like how the audience is divided up into tables instead of individual seats. I want my audience to be a part of the play.

Scenic Design:
Since I’m incorporating the whole theatre into my production, my scenic design would also have to incorporate the whole theatre. I would start by rearranging the tables to look like part of Mama Nadi’s bar. They would look worn, a little beaten up. Some of the tables in the audience would even be occupied by soldiers of whichever faction would be in the bar at the time.

For the different scenes, there would be two curtains: one towards the back and one towards the middle. The one in the back could be raised and lowered for the scenes that take place in the back room of Mama Nadi’s. The one in the middle could be raised and lowered for the scenes at the bar’s exterior. This curtain would probably be more of a backdrop type thing, and would look something like this:

I found this picture during my ‘ruined’ Google search. I think that it has the right kind of feeling that I imagine for the bar. This backdrop thing would also be the first thing that the audience would see before the play began.The interior of the “bar” would of course have a bar, but there’d also be a pool table and a couple of tables that match the ones in the audience. The bar and the pool table would be run down as well, but still functional. The overall feeling would be kind of gritty and dirty.

Costume Design:

For the women in the play, their costumes would all bright colors, to emphasize my play subject of perseverance. Their costumes would also be a little bit worn to emphasize the ruined aspect of the play, much like the heels in the picture at the top. I’d also like to mix western and African styles, so a costume might be made up of an African skirt and a western halter top.

For the men, the soldiers would all wear light cotton tops and pants, except that Kisembe’s men would wear one color, like gray, and Osembenga’s men would wear black. This would be to emphasize that the men are basically all the same, two shades of the same color.

On the other hand, both Christian and Mr. Harari would keep their suits, since I see them as the two most moral men in the play.

Lighting Design:

For the most part, lighting in my production should have a dingy feeling. Could I call it crappy bar lighting? Yes, we’ll go with crappy bar lighting. There would be some haze and a lot of shadows, maybe even a fan or something to further distort the light and shadows.

For certain scenes, like the confrontations between characters and other tense moments, I think that there should also be a degree of red lighting. This red lighting could represent the anger and also sexuality, because a lot of these tense moments are based around sex and the girls.

Sound Design:
For my music, I would use the songs provided in the play. Other than what is mentioned in the play, I wouldn’t use much music, because I want to keep more towards the natural aspects of the play, and real life isn’t underscored (except in places like elevators and waiting rooms, but I digress). As far as sounds go, I would use things like random gun fire, people running and yelling, and things like that. And maybe some explosions. I’m not really sure what kind of weaponry these militias are packing, but I feel like explosions would be in there somewhere. The people running and yelling, and the explosions, would only occur during the tense moments in the play, but the gun fire would be random and occur throughout the whole play.