The Little Mermaid
Directed by Deborah L. Walker
Lighting and Set Design
The Herricks Union Free School district holds it's annual Middle School production in the beginning of each new year. Performed on the Herricks Community Center stage, it is a middle school production like no other. The middle school shows are musicals that are the full productions with a full orchestra and a budget that allows for there to be sets like no other....
I was graced with being the set and lighting designer for the 2016 musical, The Little Mermaid. In order to easily accomplish the many transitions between land and sea, I decided to split the stage into 3 sections with the help of the main curtain and a mid stage curtain. When the full stage was open, it allowed for all the under water sequences (Triton's court, Ursula's Lair, Under the Sea, Mersister's Girl Cave) as well as opening up the stage for Kiss the Girll for the whole ensemble to be on stage. All the other scenes took place in front of the mid stage curtain. Not only trying to place each scene on the stage, I needed to think of how I was going to portray the two separate worlds. With the use of having a fun backdrop for all the under water scenes, all that was needed was one major piece to portray the different settings. For example, Triton's court had the throne and two columns. Ursula's lair was the flip side of Triton's throne.
All the scenes that took place above the water/on land, had some more pieces to them than the scenes that were under water mainly due to the fact that I needed to make up for the lack of a big backdrop. The ship was made of up three main pieces, the kitchen and palace were made up of two walls that would flip to become either or, and the beach was made up of a rock and some old looking dock pylons.
Being able to be the set and lighting designer, I was able to design the set for the lights to work with it. For instance I added 4 white panels to my drop that were placed right under 4 LED pars to allow the drop to catch not only more light but also a more saturated color.
I was graced with being the set and lighting designer for the 2016 musical, The Little Mermaid. In order to easily accomplish the many transitions between land and sea, I decided to split the stage into 3 sections with the help of the main curtain and a mid stage curtain. When the full stage was open, it allowed for all the under water sequences (Triton's court, Ursula's Lair, Under the Sea, Mersister's Girl Cave) as well as opening up the stage for Kiss the Girll for the whole ensemble to be on stage. All the other scenes took place in front of the mid stage curtain. Not only trying to place each scene on the stage, I needed to think of how I was going to portray the two separate worlds. With the use of having a fun backdrop for all the under water scenes, all that was needed was one major piece to portray the different settings. For example, Triton's court had the throne and two columns. Ursula's lair was the flip side of Triton's throne.
All the scenes that took place above the water/on land, had some more pieces to them than the scenes that were under water mainly due to the fact that I needed to make up for the lack of a big backdrop. The ship was made of up three main pieces, the kitchen and palace were made up of two walls that would flip to become either or, and the beach was made up of a rock and some old looking dock pylons.
Being able to be the set and lighting designer, I was able to design the set for the lights to work with it. For instance I added 4 white panels to my drop that were placed right under 4 LED pars to allow the drop to catch not only more light but also a more saturated color.
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