The Other Shore
Technical Director
Directed by Ashley Sparks
Scenic Design by Randy Ward
Squires Studio Theatre, Virginia Tech Spring 2006

The design for this show consisted of six cables which carry 21 panels of black scrim and 16 panels of black scenery netting. The panels were moved on cables by actors during the scenes, so the panels needed to move with very little effort. The backstage walls of the theatre are CMU with a 2’-0” band of hardened concrete about 9’-0” above the stage floor. The idea of using Tapcon screws or trying to drill holes into the hardened concrete was quickly abandoned. The theatre has a second level gallery which is removable. The gallery brackets are bolted into a threaded metal frame captured in concrete. I used these holes for steel mounting brackets I designed to hold the tensioned cables.

An actor who wore stilts sat behind a card table on an attached stool. When the audience first saw the table, the actor was preset at the table and then during the action he stood up, revealing his stilt height. The challenge was to have the table as close to standard height as possible, yet making it feasible for the actor to stand up from a seated position without looking cumbersome.

For the final scene of the show black snow and sleet falls from the grid. Many materials were tested that would produce the desired effect. Black seed beads were used to create the sound, black plastic was cut into small squares which floated and caught the light as they fell and black craft paper was shredded to create the softness of snow.



Click any image to enlarge it.
Return to Index