by William Shakespeare
Edited by Sam White

Indiana University - Bloomington, IN

Creative Team
Sam White, Director
Reuben Lucas, Scenic Designer
Camille Deering, Costume Designer
Corey Goulden-Naitove, Lighting Designer
Valeriya Nedviga, Sound Designer
Lexi Silva, Dramaturg
Eli Carnell, Technical Director
Maggie Jackson, Assistant Scenic Designer & Scenic Charge Artist
Spencer Donovan Gjerde, Prop Manager
Jeff Baldwin, Stage Automation Specialist

Selected for inclusion in the USITT Design Expo 2023 catalogue and published in the spring 2023 issue of Theatre Design & Technology Magazine, page 38

DESIGN STATEMENT

Crafting the scenic environment for “The Winter’s Tale” began with various prompts from the director and discussions with the creative team; those prompts included the harm and hope of imagination, a sense of “Alice in Wonderland”, and a physical manifestation of the character Time. Additionally, it was critical that the scenic world visually represent the duality of tones at work in the play; a dark and ominous first half (Sicilia) and a second half (Bohemia) filled with peace, calm, and redemption.

The foundation of the world is a Victorian inspired place with decaying iron buttressing evoking Leontes’ descent into jealousy and madness contrasted with elegant sheer gold curtains to provide layering, softening, and the grandeur expected of a royal palace. A multi-level platform with numerous entrances, steps, railings, and a ramped upstage entrance allows for varied staging and imaginative use location to location. Furthermore, multiple oversized clocks (representing Time) and a forced perspective checkered tiled floor adds allusions to “Alice in Wonderland” and the whimsy encountered in Bohemia.

The multiple locations of the play are achieved scenically with furniture and prop additions enhanced with other significant movements of scenic elements such as the automated tracking buttressing and a hand-gripped gold sheer curtain just upstage of the proscenium. Combined these elements allow for choreographed a-vista scenic shifts that gracefully modify the world into the various places in Sicilia; and, following the tonal shift to Bohemia, a pastoral inspired environment established by sheep fleeces, burlap, rustic furniture, and a wide-open sky on the cyc.

As the story nears its conclusion in a chapel, Hermione is seen as a statue upon a dais framed by the buttresses with ethereal gold sheer curtains on either side of the central gothic arch; a suitable place for magic, redemption, hope, and beauty to occur.