Open Forum

 View Only

  • 1.  Staging Mirrors by John O'Brien

    Posted 08-10-2016 07:51

    Hello Everyone! I hope your school years/seasons have had an amazing start! I am planning on doing Mirrors by John O'Brien for our competition one-act.  I love the play, but I'm trying to find a cool way to stage it.  If you have done this show and would please drop me a few ideas, or even if you have seen it performed in a cool way and could tell me about it, I would be in your debt. Thanks!

    ------------------------------
    Chris Reaves
    Theatre Director/ Fine Arts Chair
    Cedartown High School
    Cedartown Civic Arts Commission
    Cedartown, Georgia
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Staging Mirrors by John O'Brien

    Posted 08-15-2016 15:46

    We used a long platform across the stage.  It was set up to be two stair steps high and stretch from one end of the stage to the other.  There was a bench that accommodated two or three people in the center of the platform.  We also used a single acting box for all other furniture.

    The setting was a single colored to emphasize the lack of rational thought in the mind of the father.   The doctor came and went through one entrance and no one else used that entrance.  Lighting was a subtle shift to and from our perceived reality.  The lighting shifts became more pronounced as the show progressed.

    Break a Leg with the show.  It is a terrific vehicle for that one strong man and a nice turn for the other characters.

    Harriet

    ------------------------------
    Harriet Anderson
    Nicholson GA

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Staging Mirrors by John O'Brien

    Posted 08-15-2016 18:21

    I was thinking about this the other day when you first posted, so i looked online for previous versions.

    If I were to conceptualize a first pass for a director, I think I'd start off with a rug, like an Oriental rug, maybe 9'x12' or even smaller, and placed at an angle and down close to the apron. On it, lined up with the edges, I would place a small sofa, easy chair, and end table with a lamp. These would be chosen carefully so they could be either residential or institutional: not fancy and not plain, but simple and of indeterminate period. The rest of the stage would be dark, as in use every black available. No doors, flats, windows, anything.

    The idea here is that we could be in either the man's house or the day room in the hospital, but when we enter the theatre, and for a bit afterwards, we think we're in the house. Then the lighting changes subtly, and the doctor walks in. By isolating the action to a very small space (which is all he's aware of) we can really start getting inside his head -- which means we're not sure where we are either, or which of the other characters are real.

    I would make those light changes so subtle that we're not even sure they happened. Again, this is all inside his head, and, later, ours.

    ------------------------------
    George F. Ledo
    Set designer
    www.setdesignandtech.wordpress.com
    www.georgefledo.net
    http://astore.amazon.com/sdtbookstore-20

    Original Message