Studio Theatre at Virginia Tech, Spring 2017.
A living room in New Jersey. The opening stage direction of the script. The concept: a monotone, old, dirty wallpaper intertwining with 5 year-old Lucy's twisted imagination. Child-like drawings, with an almost ghostly presence, onto a fragmented wall. Her world is that living room, that centric space in her house. A stained, dirty carpet is her playground.
Every element of the set -from the walls, to the carpet, to the furniture- had to suggest a badly-kept household. A sad parallel to Lucy's childhood.
Directed by Greg Justice
Scenic Design by Estefania Perez-Vera
Lighting Design by Christian Specht
Costume Design by Alison Owen
Properties Design by Felysia Havens
Charge Artist: Rhi Sanders
A base coat of light cream, with a grey, cloudy vignetting on the top and bottom edges of the walls. A sponging of a darker cream color was applied to give the wallpaper some additional texture.
Following the sponging, the stripped pattern of the "wallpaper", in light grey, was marked and painted. To keep the pattern's continuity right was key at this stage of the process.
Humidity marks, stains and other signs of distress where added to some areas on the walls.
The giant cartoons were initially outlined with light marker, and then painted with super saturated pigments, which gave them their translucent quality.