SILENT SKY
For a class assignment, I scenic designed the play Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson. My team and I went through the artistic process for a production through the start of the budgeting phase. The following is a color-sketch of my final scenic design, additional iterations, and research imagery.
DIRECTOR: Sabrina Zanello-Jackson
DRAMATURGS: Eliza Hallinan & Julia Levine
SOUND DESIGNER: Kaiti Barta
COSTUME DESIGNER: Sophie Nakai
LIGHTING DESIGNER: Amelia Li
final design.
Silent Sky as a whole is a poignant example of a woman’s experience in a man’s world. Henrietta Leavitt was a renowned astronomer, but received no credit for her work until around the time she died. She was a determined woman who was constantly looking up. Throughout her life, she dealt with the pressures of traditional family life, love, and male dominance in the workplace. Despite this, Leavitt’s strong will and knowledge of self-worth kept her feet on the ground and her mind on the universe. I focused on this idea when designing for our production.
We wanted to create a space where Henrietta and her fellow female computers could work on their feet; they were active and confident thinkers, and their space needed to reflect that. They stack and move boxes of the valuable information they sift through day after day. Hanging all around them, over the audience, and around the theatre are the stars they study, but are not allowed to see, despite knowing everything about them. Though they are not allowed access to the telescope, the entire universe exists like a map inside their minds. Everywhere she looks, Henrietta sees these glowing stars that pulse along with the music of her soul, encapsulating her mind’s scientific artistry in a beautiful canopy.
iterations.
ground plans.
imagery.
