Assassins '11
MIT Musical Theater Guild, Summer 2011
Dir. Kate Roe
From a technical standpoint, Assassins is the design team I'm most proud to have been a part of. A really solid set, spot-on props, and gorgeous lighting made it a really immersive and moving show, and I heard lots of great feedback from appreciative audience members.
Costume-wise, it was a blast, and a great learning experience. I got to really delve into historical research for each presidential assassin, from Booth in the 1860s to Hinkley in the late 1980s. The set and lighting focused on big, bold brick red and patriotic blues, so I spaced those colors out evenly among the assassins. The main forces of good and evil, the Proprietor (Proprietress, in our version) and Balladeer, were placed staunchly at either end of that spectrum, with one in all red and black, the other in blue and white. They were also design foils in several regards. He was a scruffy, All-American kid who toyed with a baseball and snacked on candy at the side of the stage. Meanwhile, she wore a sleazy carny-barker-slash-politician outfit with a sexy, fitted coat and spent her time on the aprons sharpening a knife. His faded plaid shirt contrasted with her bold vertical stripes, and he spent his time onstage condemning the assassins versus her egging them on.
The ensemble had to be similarly tuned to historical period, yet had to slip in and out of character frequently. I ended up going with a gray/sepia tone scheme for them, making them nameless faces in the back of photographs while the assassins took center stage and made history. Similarly, each president portrayed onstage (by the same actor) faded into the same figure by wearing the same basic outfit (black suit, white shirt, red tie), but tailored to fit the given historical period (Garfield in a cutaway coat, McKinley in a sack coat, Ford in a modern suit jacket, etc.).
You can read a review of the show by MIT's student newspaper here: http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N34/assassins.html
Photos courtesy of Jax Kirtley.
Dir. Kate Roe
From a technical standpoint, Assassins is the design team I'm most proud to have been a part of. A really solid set, spot-on props, and gorgeous lighting made it a really immersive and moving show, and I heard lots of great feedback from appreciative audience members.
Costume-wise, it was a blast, and a great learning experience. I got to really delve into historical research for each presidential assassin, from Booth in the 1860s to Hinkley in the late 1980s. The set and lighting focused on big, bold brick red and patriotic blues, so I spaced those colors out evenly among the assassins. The main forces of good and evil, the Proprietor (Proprietress, in our version) and Balladeer, were placed staunchly at either end of that spectrum, with one in all red and black, the other in blue and white. They were also design foils in several regards. He was a scruffy, All-American kid who toyed with a baseball and snacked on candy at the side of the stage. Meanwhile, she wore a sleazy carny-barker-slash-politician outfit with a sexy, fitted coat and spent her time on the aprons sharpening a knife. His faded plaid shirt contrasted with her bold vertical stripes, and he spent his time onstage condemning the assassins versus her egging them on.
The ensemble had to be similarly tuned to historical period, yet had to slip in and out of character frequently. I ended up going with a gray/sepia tone scheme for them, making them nameless faces in the back of photographs while the assassins took center stage and made history. Similarly, each president portrayed onstage (by the same actor) faded into the same figure by wearing the same basic outfit (black suit, white shirt, red tie), but tailored to fit the given historical period (Garfield in a cutaway coat, McKinley in a sack coat, Ford in a modern suit jacket, etc.).
You can read a review of the show by MIT's student newspaper here: http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N34/assassins.html
Photos courtesy of Jax Kirtley.