Curtain Call (2023)
was an immersive installation pre-show for the CMU Drama production of Lear.
Team
Angie Mendenhall: Producer and Assistant Designer
Charlie Agriogianis: Technical and Narrative Designer
Lauren Platt: Hardware Engineer and Concept Designer
Aldora Wang: Experience Designer and Artist
Jiaxin Li: Visual Artist and Designer
Experience Goals
> Adaptable for "waders", "swimmers", and "divers".
> Reinforce and compliment the themes of the play.
> Generate excitement for the show.
Technology
> Directional Speakers
> Timed UV Light flashes
> Unity Project Show Control
What Was Curtain Call?
The team was tasked with creating a lobby installation for Lear in the Purnell Center of the Arts. Lear is a searing, hilarious, post-tragedy collision of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ and ‘Sesame Street.’ We worked closely with the Dramaturg of the show, as well as the production crew to deliver an experience that prepares guests for the play. During the play, a storm rages on outside of the theater, so we made our experience a thunderstorm to continue building that world with the show outside of the theater. Our sound and light storm made use of directional speakers, in which when standing under an umbrella, a character will whisper to the guest their greatest secrets or regrets. The project blogs can be found here.
Process
Initial Themes
Our team was quick to begin iterating once we understood the guidelines of our project. We wanted to quickly have a solid concept that we could build upon. After speaking with our client, we came up with three themes: relationships, vulnerability, and change. We confirmed that these themes should be the core of our experience with the client at the next meeting and began creating concepts that emphasize these elements.
Brainstorming Mind Map
After discussions with our collaborator from the School of Drama, we were requested to make our installation based around the storm from King Lear. During brainstorming, Lauren spoke about her experience at Level99 using directional audio domes. We decided we could use something similar to create a “storm of voices.”
Original Concept Art
Lauren created some concept art of what this version of the installation would look like. We plan to have hanging umbrellas from the second floor balcony which are created from the directional speaker domes, which can have quotes from the play or personal questions that are related to the show to get guests in the right headspace.
Rough Schedule
I created a scheduling document on Google Sheets so that the team can access it and edit if needed, with a rough idea of how construction of the installation should go. This document was created as a rough draft for the physical calendar that sat in our project room, which listed every day left of the project and allowed for us to put up sticky notes or write important deadlines on it.
Task List
I also created a simple task list on the same document to elaborate further on the tasks listed on the scheduling document.
Finalized Concept Art
At this point in the project, there was a bit of conflict within the team with what the creative direction of the project should be. I ran a meeting with the team so that they could all discuss their cases, as well as clarify our project metrics and what success meant to us. With these metrics, we compared the different directions to this and ranked them from 1 to 5, not meeting to meeting the project metric. With this, we discovered how we could combine two ideas together well and solidify our concept. Here is concept art created by Jiaxin of this final idea.
Halves Presentation
After testing some technology, specifically the directional speakers in loud spaces, we created our midterm review, which was presented to the faculty and other students at the ETC. Here is a video of our midterm presentation.
Installation Test
We set up a quick test of our directional speakers in the lobby of the ETC building, by hanging the umbrella from the second floor. We wanted to make sure the audio from the speaker in the umbrella would be heard from the lobby, as well as work as a station to stand under.
Directional Speakers
Since the only directional speakers we could find were kits, Charlie and I had to assemble the speakers ourselves. It was fun getting to solder them together!
Playtest Day
During Playtest Day, we set up two umbrellas, with two different audio tracks. We were gauging technical data, such as if guests could hear and understand the voices through the speakers, as well as emotional data, if guests related to the things being said.
Load-in
Since our installation was in the Purnell Center for the Arts, we had to move all our set pieces and technology over there. We set up as much as we could so we wouldn’t have to build on site and moved it over to the Drama building. I organized the load in with Drama so we could have someone drive the Drama truck as well as somewhere to store our installation.
Installation Day
We created this time lapse of our installation process, which had to be completed in one day as we only had a few days before the show to install our project. You can watch the time lapse above.
Curtain Call Project Trailer
We created this trailer of the final installation using footage from the nights of the show. This trailer is meant to show the mood of the project and what it was like to be in the lobby before and after the show. .
Curtain Call Final Presentation
The team gave a final presentation at the end of the semester recapping the project and the challenges and successes we went through creating it. This is our final presentation.