ROUNDABOUT BLOG

Donyale Werle – Set Design

Things are not always as they appear. The Robber Bridegroom is the musical story of Jamie Lockhart, the man with two faces - gentleman bridegroom by day and bandit by night. This duality within became the basis of the design for The Robber Bridegroom.

When Alex Timbers and I first sat down, we talked a lot about barns, a place where farm animals live and an impromptu bluegrass hoe-down can happen, and asked the question, could a barn be simultaneously over-stuffed and deconstructed? We needed a framing device, a stage for the spinning of the tale. We needed actual locations or the perception of those locations: the Musgroves’ mansion, the Indigo Woods, the Robber’s hide-away cabin. But we also needed for all of those elements to disappear immediately, as if they were never there to begin with.

The research for this show focused on barns and the Mississippi woods. These cavernous, heavy-beamed structures and beautiful, quiet, organic symphonies of nature became two-fold. We looked through images lit by strong sunlight and soft moonlight and became enamored with the spaces between the boards and branches - this place where the light coming through tells one story and the shadows created spin another. Authenticity became very important. A lesson all good con men know: if you are selling something, people better believe in what they are buying! We turned to the basics - real wood, dirt, steel, exposed lights and structure, a wood plank, a trunk, a burlap sack.

We now invite the actors to manipulate the real, to play their games, to spin the yarn, create the world of mythical characters & charlatans and explore the adventure that is going to unfold - the Mississippi fairytale world of The Robber Bridegroom!

Werle's set design for THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM

Jeff Croiter and Jake DeGroot – Lighting Design

The world of The Robber Bridegroom is a world where opposite, seemingly contradictory forces are woven together right before our eyes. This is certainly true of Jamie Lockhart (one man with two faces), and it is just as true of the lighting design, which is both period and modern, warm and cool, and contained and expansive. How can it be both period and modern at the same time? The hijinks on the Natchez Trace take place well over a century before the invention of the electric light bulb, yet the presence of modern theatrical lighting fixtures alongside lanterns and candles helps the characters playfully leap out of the period. The whole story unfolds within Donyale Werle’s beautiful barn-inspired structure, yet we find ourselves bouncing seamlessly from location to location relying on lighting shifts and a heap of imagination to re-shape the environment. The lighting see-saws from the warm, inviting, soft, candle-lit glow of Rodney to the cool, crisp, textured, shadowy woods.

Throughout these locations, the stage is bursting at the seams with energy and action. From the footlights that barely dodge stomping feet to the nearly-reachable ceiling of lights, the cramped quarters can barely contain the story. Yet, when the lighting opens up to reveal hidden layers of texture and depth outside, piercing through and swelling from beyond the slatted walls, we discover a whole new sense of space. It turns out that the lighting design, as Jamie might say, can be many things at the same damn time.

Darron L. West – Sound Design

I spent my childhood in Kentucky surrounded by the sounds of bluegrass and country music and shape note singing harmonies in churches and on porches. So the chance for the first time to dive back into “the music of my people” (in midtown Manhattan no less!?) was certainly an offer I couldn’t pass up. To be back in a room with Alex Timbers and many of the same design team from Peter and the Starcatcher is just icing on the cake. My associate Charles and I fell in love with the sound of the Laura Pels Theatre during our work on Fiasco’s Into the Woods, and it’s a pleasure to be back in the room breathing life into a new production of The Robber Bridegroom.

Much like Into the Woods, the sound design of The Robber Bridegroom is rooted in the beautiful sound of acoustic instruments being played well. There is a trend happening now in musicals of lots of processing from the house mixing position and using compression to squash the music’s dynamic range (much like the over-compressed MP3s we play on our iPhones daily). Music, all music, but especially roots and bluegrass-driven music, lives and breathes in its dynamic range. The interpretation of the singers and musicians on their instruments and the performers’ dynamics of loud and soft are the heart and soul of that music. Robert’s amazing music is filled with subtle details, and Justin and Martin’s glorious orchestrations just enhance that. The story of The Robber Bridegroom is about trickery in all forms, but the sound design shouldn’t be.

Some of the greatest performances of roots music have been done with a group of musicians and singers gathered around one microphone, and we’ve taken this approach with the sound design. No over-processing or fancy digital tricks are put in the way. Carefully selected microphones put through a transparent sound system, carrying beautiful music performed by fabulous singers and musicians straight to the audience’s ear with nothing in the way. The purity of that in itself is magic no doubt, but I assure you there are no tricks up our sleeve.

The Robber Bridegroom begins performances on February 18 at the Laura Pels Theatre. For tickets and information, please visit our website.