Colorful lighting and the whimsical set brought Lipscomb theater’s Seussical to life this weekend in Collins Alumni Auditorium.
The production design team created an instantly recognizable world on stage while keeping technical elements from interfering with the performance of the cast.
Andy Bleiler, set designer and technical director, said that he really wanted the set to stay faithful to the source material, so he based the set off of Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
“The colors that we chose were really based on the ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ book,” Bleiler said. “If you look at the cover of that book and you look at the set, you’ll see they’re really, really close.”
Bleiler intentionally chose muted colors so that the set would not clash with other visual elements of the show.
“One of the intentions was to have the set be sort of a lighter version [of the ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go’ colors], and that way the colors of the costumes, which are in a similar palette, could pop off of that,” Bleiler said.
The set is built in two levels. The stage floor is the first level, and the second is a large stairway that goes across the back of the stage, forming a large arch. That stairway is covered with many colorful, arched doorways to add the classic Dr. Seuss touch.
The stairway takes up a small amount of the stage, allowing the cast to have more room for acting and dancing.
David Hardy, assistant professor of theater and lighting designer, had the challenge of lighting the already colorful stage.
“Ironically, the intent was to keep it pretty simple and just really let the set and costumes do a lot of the talking,” Hardy said. “Andy’s got these beautiful, vibrant colors on the set, and June’s [costume designer June Kingsbury] got vibrant, beautiful colors on all the costuming.”
Hardy described the lighting development as a trial and error process.
“Initially, we went pretty saturated with the colors,” Hardy said. “This week [of tech rehearsals] has been about adding more light to make it brighter and making scenes more neutral, and also sometimes all of that color washes things out and makes it flat, so we’re trying to find those moments to pop it back out more.”
Seussical’s remaining shows are Feb. 14, 20 and 21 at 7:30 p.m., and Feb. 15 and 22 at 3:30 p.m. in Collins.