SCHOOL GIRLS, OR THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY DESIGN PROCESS
VISUAL REFERENCE / RESEARCH
The play takes place at the Aburi Girls Boarding School, located in the Aburi Mountains in central Ghana in 1986. This is a school that exists, and so my goal was to accurately reproduce the communal meeting space of that school as much as possible within the context of the Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre space. I very much wish I could have traveled to Ghana to research this space first hand, but alas. I was able to find some great research online though - one of the best sources was a “High School TV” video made by current students of the Aburi Girls Senior High School. One of the things that struck me was how the space was so open to the outside, and how bright daylight was an important part of the interior space. The director (Awoye Timpo), the lighting designer (Stacey Derosier), and I decided to attempt something that I normally try to avoid, which is to highlight the exterior sky and landscape - something that I actually think, in theory, is impossible to do inside a theater, so usually I’m trying to figure out how to avoid looking directly outside.
Here is the room we were trying to translate into the context of the Roda Theatre at Berkeley Rep. I was particularly intrigued by this wall of intense daylight…
Another good shot of color scheme, fans, and the indirect bounced light coming in through the louvers
Here’s what the exterior of that “wall of intense light” looks like. Concrete breeze block panels alternating with steel gates, and of course the structural columns / frames
Visual reference for the color scheme, and a good view of the indirect bounced daylight coming in through the louvers above the side wall openings. Also a good reference for the ceiling fans and wall-mounted fans - a good way to try to convey the sense of heat through architecture.
MODEL PHOTOS
It’s getting harder to differentiate computer models from physical models, but we explored this design both ways simultaneously
chip board physical model 1:24 scale (Emma Antenen, Laura Valenti, Ethan Brown)
virtual model made in VectorWorks (Ethan Brown)
painted model 1:24 (Laura Valenti, Ethan Brown)
painted model 1:24 (Laura Valenti, Ethan Brown)
close up of gate 1:24 - starting to warp a little… Oops
DRAWINGS
The main goal was to make the set as large as possible, taking advantage of the full stage area - and making sure to always identify the “magical trapezoid of sightlines” in the rehearsal room, so everyone remembered that even though the space extends relatively far offstage, those are not areas of the space that the entire audience can see.
A messy sketch of the basic geometry of the space with repetitive structural bays - an early version with 5 bays before we simplified it down to 4 bays
The final (ish) groundplan drafted by Ethan Brown - showing the magical trapezoid of sightlines
Ethan Brown’s 3D model in VectorWorks flushing out my messy sketch - starting to explore the range of sightlines from different seats in the virtual theater
BUILD
I made a quick visit to the Berkeley Rep scene shop to check in on progress
This is not particularly relevant to SCHOOL GIRLS except it’s the amazing view from the airplane on the approach to SFO and it will show up in a future design for sure… possibly Macbeth…
The incredible props department built 10 custom tables and 20 custom benches and made them look like very used old furniture.
CNC routed tree branches with artificial leaves stapled on - one of 6 tree canopies to create the effect of our space being on the second floor, looking out over a courtyard below.
The beautiful paint tray that gets carried around the shop with the wall colors
A lot of very skilled welding to create the gates - impressive formwork! The model version was much easier to just laser-cut… : )
TECH
#ArtInTheTimeOfCorona COVID-19 cancelled my flight to Berkeley for tech, so I FaceTimed into conversations and parts of rehearsal. The company managed to push through to the first and last run-through, which was video-taped and made available to ticket-buyers on BroadwayHD. Later that night, the Bay Area was ordered to shelter in place.
photo credit: Lisa Lázár
The set mostly loaded in and ready to tech (photo credit: Samantha Welsing)
FaceTiming with Matt during a work call to fine-tune the trees
Jim placing the final tree…,
The night of the first and last run-through (photo and beer and paint credit: Lisa Lázár)
PRODUCTION PHOTOS
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