To reflect on the creative, innovative moments of 2020 and to welcome the hope that the New Year brings, Live Design is conducting 31 Days Of Plots. Every day during the month of December 2020, we will highlight a different lighting design, from across theatre, concert tours, corporate events, and more.
Krista Smith shares the lighting plots for her lighting design of Coop at Paradise Factory.
Sam Max’s play Coop is the story of Avery, a teenage girl of unknown age (even to herself), who dreams of experiencing the world but is stuck on the family farm where their rituals and aggressions have isolated and trapped her. Passage of time is central to the structure of their lives, and to understanding Avery’s internal version which gets compounded and ratcheted ever tighter around her, becoming distorted and mixing with memories until finally resulting in her brutal means of escape.
The progression of time over a day is introduced in the dialogue-less opening sequence. This visual structure that underscores the family’s daily routine is shown in how the sunlight that comes into their space changes. It is a hot afternoon, and the family enters to proceed with their separate afternoon chores. Over a long slow cue, the sun sets, moving the shadow cast from their slow-turning ceiling fan up the wall until it fades, and shifting their small wooden home from the warmth of sunlight (units no color just R119) into the cool blue (L201) and lavender tones (R55 and R4230) of evening. The fan’s light above the kitchen table turns on as if to call the family together for their evening meal, and the play has begun. Their days are ruled by the sun: The family gathers on their porch each day to say their morning prayers facing the sun as it rises on their little world. Prayers, chores, and meals make their days a rigid, repetitious cycle that Avery can only be free from in stolen secret moments and at night when she visits the memories of her uncle on the porch.
The visual storytelling needed from lighting for this play were: a clear passage of time from day into night with identifiable times of day, interior kitchen, exterior porch, slips into memory and fantasy, realistic car headlights, abstracted car headlights, and a few moments of intense violence, all blanketed in the constricting pressure of an inescapable place.
I had the challenges and benefits of an intimate space. The challenge of limited control and equipment caused me to make extra sure I maximized each light’s possibilities and that they were placed in the best possible position. I also had the benefit of developing this new work in a space where changes can be done faster. It’s easier to swap around ideas and try new things when the lights aren’t hard to reach! The freedom to devise and discover becomes more fluid. In a smaller space, one light can have a lot of impact, plus there are possibilities in the graphic of a strong single source shadow. I decided to feature this ability and use it to help depict the arc of the sun, having the shadow of the fan with its constant slow slicing blades move across of the walls of the family’s kitchen as the day passes. I found the stark shadows cast by the fan (and the actors) on the walls really satisfying in an unsettling way, and felt they brought further visual tension. Typically, I find every way to cut lights off the walls to carve actors out from them, eliminating these shadows, but for this show and the way everything fit together, this ended up being perfect. Plus, a large portion of the playing space had a ceiling so my approach needed to further play into our scenic designer Emona Stoykova’s set.
I used every light in the inventory. The S4 Zooms worked out well; being versatile units, I knew they could function for a range of purposes with the ability to swap ideas around in changing the focus and barrel zoom instead of needing to shuffle barrels or entire units. I was pleased when I learned the venue had Elation ELED RGB Pars; they also zoom so I knew I could use them both as specials and as a wash system. My bank of them from the front worked great to show the color progression in the sunrises, and they came in handy for a few other moments when we needed an affront of color.
Car headlights panning across the space was an essential element lighting needed to execute. It wasn’t feasible to have this effect come from units operated lower, in a truer to reality way, but since the grid wasn’t too high and there were additional moments where the headlights needed to move in a non-realistic way, ICues on units overhead was the best option. I brought in two rented ETC lustr2 36° with DMX irises and ICues. These were fabulous. The car headlight effect worked great, and then these units were in a great spot to be used throughout the show for other purposes. These two units with their accessories, plus a few strategic snubnose top hats where the only items outside of the venue’s inventory. Our TD JC Bardzil and I hung and focused the plot, and I think I touched each light at least three times – some a lot more. The venue console was an ETC Element, that I programmed.
I loved this production. The discovery involved in new work and collaborating with other brilliant artists is a joy I deeply miss. It was wonderful to work with playwright and director Sam Max. We’d worked together prior so we have a good visual language and shared aesthetics. I love how Sam writes; in the text, there are pivotal moments that when brought to the stage really hold their own ground without needing lighting to further punctuate, thus allowing for moments when we do to have that much more impact.
— Krista Smith
Check out other plots from the 31 Days here, and stay tuned for more over the next 2 days.