Oklahoma!
Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II

Viterbo University
La Crosse, WI
Oct 2015
Lighting Design by Patrick Strain

Directed by Matthew Campbell
Music Direction by Nancy Allen
Choreography by Shane Rhoades
Scenic Design by Frank Ludwig
Costume Design by Irina Christel

Show curtain - projection by Frank Ludwig.

The (hopefully) beautiful morning opening tableau.

"Beautiful Morngin" - Curly singing that it's true.

The smokehouse. Because what lighting designer doesn't love this scene?

The wedding in the ballet.

Curly being carried away in the ballet. Low front lights were used in the fight scene to create the shadow play.

Act II auction.

Jud advances on Laurey in the stage left apron wing.

Curly awaits proposing to Laurey in the stage right apron wing.

Yee-ow!

LIGHT PLOT LINK

BOOMS PLOT LINK

SECTION LINK

Production Notes:

I was hired a few weeks prior to tech on this show, so wasn't in on the initial design meetings, but it's Oklahoma and no debilitating concept was inflicted on it, so... no worries. The artistic goal was simply to highlight community; the central barn image and "hayloft" and corn units that rearranged kept us in a familiar setting throughout, save the smokehouse which tracked on and off.

Lighting was mostly time of day motivated, from sunrise to sunset, with the exception of the ballet when all bets were off. There it was a combination of quasi-dance lighting and deep shadowy moments with a lot of pattern and color play on the fully revealed cyc (tempted to call it the psych). Rotating gobos took us into and out of the dream and shadow-work during the fight added to the chaos.