The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie was only my second show, but it was also the first time I was a head lighting designer. This production was especially difficult due to time constraints and the fact that my assistant had to leave the production due to overwhelming school work. This project took about 6 weeks to design and implement. Since I was now no longer an assistant, I was more independent, but I was working with tougher technical directors and show directors. I was also the board operator for this show. Below is a 360-degree photo of the set from Scotch'n'Soda Theater's Facebook page!
This play is a murder mystery veiled in tradition. For over 60 years, the play has asked audiences to keep the murderer's identity a secret. The Mousetrap takes place in Monkswell Manor Guest House during a blizzard. The Ralstons are a young couple that have just opened this guest house, and their first run of occupants is an eccentric bunch. The larger-than-life characters of this play led me to highlight their strongest character moments with their own colors. Underneath this, I played with the notion of temperature using color. As the play progressed (and the residents of Monkswell are visited by a police officer), the stage's wash goes from a warm orange to a cold, uninviting yellow.
I was also granted the liberty of using several fun lighting effects to create a fun artistic vision, but also a believable environment. When Detective Sergeant Trotter is interrogating the Monkswell guests, front lighting rises to a harsh peak, and back lighting lowered slightly. This produced very strong shadows on the faces of the actors, reminiscent of a police interrogation in a small room usually seen in the movies.
The fireplace was actually an LED D40 light behind a frosted-glass grate. Throughout the show, I had a random flicker effect run on this light, to create dancing shadows on the floor of the stage, and make the audience feel as if a real fire was behind that glass. The window lighting was created using a flat behind the functioning window, which was light at a near-vertical angle by an LED light overhead. Using changing color, I was able to suggest the coming blizzard and passing of time.
Overall, this experience was very helpful in teaching me how to work efficiently under heavy time constraint. Since my assistant had to leave near the beginning of the production, I had to produce almost all of my cue sheets and lighting plots, and program all the lighting cues alone. However, she did input valuable ideas early on, and she seemed very excited to learn the concepts behind lighting design. She was also the person who got me my previous position. As a result, I made sure to develop the ideas she had presented and use them in the play.