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When Grandma Goes
By Rachel Kay Curtiss
Brownville Village Theatre Season 59
Sound Design: Parker Shinn
Props Design: BVT Prop Team
Stage Manager and Photos: Jayce O'Quinn
Director: Mitchell Bean
Costumes Design: Lizzy Pegler
Hair/Makeup: Jack Danter
Set Design: Jarvis Jahner
Light Design: Theresa Gygi
REsearch/Paper Work
As with all of my work for the Brownville Village Theatre, because the season ran as rotating rep the lights positions/gels couldn't be tailored for one production. All of the focusing had to work for each production because there wasn't enough time in between some shows to change a whole lot. Picking a basic warm/cool gel for each of the lights and then worrying about specials and which show was using them was the biggest challenge I had to overcome.
The simple and fast paced nature of When Grandma Goes let my design speak for itself. One of the LED lights changed it's focus to point straight down onto the rocking chair outside the window, which was the same focus I used in Beware the House on Haunted Hill! for the pit of acid. Each night I would also set the screen door LED fixture to give a bit of depth outside of the house. This light was extremely apparent when the power would go out at the end of act 2.
Research/Paper Work
Cue Sheet
Boards: Elation Stage Setter 24 and ROCKFORCE 192
LED/Specials Focus Points
Sunsets
My biggest inspiration after hearing the set was going to be bright orange was sunsets. While there wasn't a lot of complicated queing in the show, setting up the two window specials to emulate outside light through the screen door and then straight down onto grandma's rocking chair is where a lot of my inspiration was used. A warmer, pinker light to give the space a softer glow is what we landed on. These two outside lights added comedy when a blackout would occur but the two lights would stay on giving a backlight to the characters onstage after a shocking twist at the end of act 1.
Figuring out how to get the light to shine through the door and window. I settled for a downlight on the rocking chair in front of the window because Grandma would consistently sit there and giver her more of a glow when combined with the front light. Because the door was a screen door seeing where the light and what color was coming through was very obvious to the audience. Characters would stand, walk through, and sit in the table in front of the door where light was coming from so a simple LED with a pinker hue to be distinct against the indoor lighting is what I went with.
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