My Design Process

As a scenic and lighting, and sound designer, design is what I do.  I have had conversations with professors and other designers many times over the process, there have even been times where I have had professors tell me flat out that my process is wrong. I will always disagree with the thought process that someones design process is wrong. Every designer works differently.  Be is a play, a musical, a dance piece, or a collection of short pieces; every show is different and requires a different thought process. The two main processes are:

Design without research-
I use this style more with lighting then scenic, however there have been a few shows where scenically the script spoke to me in a way that I didn't need to do research. If a script is written well and has enough of a description, it will tell you what to design. Scenically, I can give two examples of this:

Flags- a modern take on a Greek tragedy to protest the Iraq war, complete with a Greek chorus as news reporters. While reading this script, that takes place almost totally in a families living room, I kept seeing Greek Architecture. So I designed it with columns and a capitol.

Cats- This was just a crazy show to work on from the start. Generally, the show is places in a garbage pile of some sorts, however, my director wanted it placed in a carnival or fair grounds. There was no research with this design up front, later I did more research for small details like painting and such.

Design with research- 
Most of my scenic design is done this way, be it with types of stone, or house styles, or locations. Most recently I used this with a lighting design, but I will talk about a standard scenic design as well.

Voice of the Prairie- This show takes place in the early days of radio in the Kansas area. My research was mainly on when electricity came to the prairie. There is a 15 to 20 year difference between act 1 and act 2, with parts of both acts being done in flashbacks. The reason I researched when electricity came to the area was because it would decide what color the lighting would be as well as what types of practicals would be used. It was gas light by the way, so my practicals had to be warmed up to look like a flame.

Other Desert Cities- This show takes place outside the Palms Springs Dessert in a house that was built in the 1960's. My research focused on the types of houses, what the outside looks like, what the inside looks like.


There have been many shows that require a mixture of these processes. Hairspray was a show that required very little up front research for the original concept, but the actual design needed LOTS of research. Another show was A Piece of my Heart, it needed lots of research before I even started conceiving it because I needed to see more of what Vietnam looked like.

Design evolves and changes constantly, something that works for one show will not work for another.