Dracula

To provide new artistic and technical solutions to the challenges faced by many high schools and colleges associated with limited resources, each season Marshall University Theatre explores a new aspect of computer technology that promises to extend our production capabilities.  The 1999 season production of Oliver! explored the use of paper backdrops with images created in Adobe Photoshop printed on a large format plotter.  Since  Oliver! the department has used this innovative technology in three additional productions to create scenic drops and props. These experience provided the basis for a Workshop in large Format Printing offered at the Southeast Theatre Conference in March 2001.  Next year, the Department will provide a workshop at the National Thespian Convention in Lincoln Nebraska demonstrating the creation and construction of these drops to thousands of high school students and teachers.

This year MU Theatre’s production of Steven Dietz’s Dracula provided a unique opportunity to meet the challenges offered by Dietz’s cinematic script.  Dietz moves his characters almost instantaneously from place to place requiring the scenery to change  from a wrack strewn beach to Lucy’s bedroom to Dracula’s castle in a heartbeat. This style of production requires a unit set with small scenic units that transition effortlessly and quickly from scene to scene while retaining the operatic visual scale of each environment that Dietz envisions.  Generally speaking, drops, flown scenic pieces, and computerized scenic units would be employed in commercial theatres meet this challenge. However these scenic elements require considerable construction and installation time, increase construction costs considerably, and require a well-trained and experience stage crew to run the performance safely.  Solutions usually unavailable to high school, college, and small community theatres with limited resources.

The technology employed to meet the challenge of quick scene shifts and visual scale was found in the marriage of an affordable 3000 lumen (bright) LCD projector with Apple’s new iMac hardware and iMovie software.  Images (approximately 23’H x 30’W) such as the graveyard scene, created in Adobe Photoshop, were rear-projected on a seamless white backdrop.  A black scrim (a transparent loosely woven fabric) hung in the front of the white backdrop ( cyclorama) to allow the background to become completely dark in scenes where the projections were not in use.  In addition, to support the cinematic quality of the script, and the scenic designer’s (Darwin Payne) visual interpretation of Dietz’s script, many of the projected images were animations, created in iMovie, that reinforced and/or reflected the actor’s physical environment and emotional state in each scene.  This technique was used most effectively in the storm sequence, the procession (Dracula’s journey to England), and in the sunset in the second Lucy’s Bedroom scene. A sequence of still images was created for each scene using Adobe Photoshop.  The Photoshop images were then imported into iMovie where the transitions were rendered by the software and played back directly through the LCD projector. Timing issues regarding when a scene began and where it ended were handled either by the use of a mechanical dowser or on the computer both operated by a stage technician.  Through careful planning, good communication between the director, designers, and shop staff, and the innovative use technology the production, Marshall University Theatre succeeded in meeting the challenges provided by Steven Dietz’s script.

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