I was the Scenic Designer for this production of Round the Mountain (by Cameron HOug) with Central Theatre Ensemble’s Ghostlight Lab Series in April of 2019. Below are some production photos from the show.
Photo Credit: Nicholas Han, Directed By: Isaac Pauls, Costume Designer: Jennifer Manderly, Lighting Design: Charlie Herman
Getting to work through every stage of Round the Mountain that I was blessed to was an experience I don’t know that I’ll soon forget. Working on yet another original production created an engaging and creative energy, which fueled some wonderful conversations and sparked some out-there design ideas across the board. On top of being an original production, it was done outside of the mainstage domain, which meant that all scenery had to be built or pulled from stock. Thank heavens for the stock of scenery that CTE has; it made the production possible. That being said there was a bit of construction necessary and a whole lot of painting. On top of scenic design, I also led the charge on those fronts as well, doing most of the construction myself. Those aspects of the project were particularly useful; while I had obviously communicated with scenery shops before, in my time at CWU I had done most of my work in painting and did not work as much in the technical director planning side of a construction process. This show gave me that real world, hands off experience. On the painting side of the process, once again having no professor supervision meant I had to work through communication of painting techniques all on my own, which was another great learning experience. All in all the show taught me that low/no budget theatre is a valuable and possible market for myself early on in my career, and perhaps most of all it helped reassure me that I am ready for those opportunities.