Cabaret
February 2014

My pride and joy of this set was the built in slip stage that allowed the show to move seamlessly from club scenes to interior bedroom scenes. Not only was all the furniture able to track on without a single viewed crew person, but the dancers were able to be pushed on frozen in poses. The back wall of doors sat upstage of the slipstage and was covered by the maroon satin curtain. 

Beyond the doors and the slipstage is an apron framed by the angular proscenium of the club stage and twin circular staircases. Within the lower stage was a space carved out for the band and our music director.  Next to the stage sat the club tables and chairs. The angular flats were back lit with strands of globe lights and in the center hung a "neon" sign painted with UV reactive paint. 

While researching for this show, I wanted to really reference the art at the time it's set, because it's a show about artists. I was very moved by German expressionism. It was chaotic while maintaining structure, massive and overbearing in size, and foreboding in a unsettling way. I  decided to base the overall shape of the proscenium and club stairs/stage off those expressionist images, instead of grounding them more realistically. In contrast, I wanted the boarding house to be very grounded, with fully furnished scenes so your drawn to focus your world inside the gold proscenium.