Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University Stupid Fcking Bird

Theatrical designers Melpomene Katakalos and Will Lowry piece of work in neighboring offices on the tertiary flooring of Lehigh'south Zoellner Arts Center. Information technology's not unusual to hear a knock on a shared wall or the shouted description of a sudden stroke of creative genius between the two rooms—evidence of a rich collaborative partnership rooted in a shared affinity for contemporary theatre.

The two came to Lehigh after developing successful professional lives on reverse coasts: Katakalos in the Bay Area, and Lowry in New York.

Katakalos, an acquaintance professor of theatre, has designed sets for the Tony-award winning theatres La Jolla Playhouse and San Francisco Mime Troupe, the California Shakespeare Theatre and Cornerstone Theatre in Los Angeles. She also co-founded the honour-winning Crowded Fire Theater Company in San Francisco, which produces works by new and contemporary artists. Lowry, an assistant professor of theatre, spent five years as studio assistant for Tony Award-winning costume designer William Ivey Long, contributing to Broadway productions including Bound of Organized religion, 9 to five and Catch Me If You lot Tin can. He has created designs for theatres along the East Coast and as far away as Australia's famed Sydney Opera House.

Both designers find the greatest amount of excitement in working on new plays and world premieres.

"We take that similar groundwork which allows united states of america to talk with some of the same vocabulary and be excited nearly the aforementioned things," says Lowry. "That'south ane reason I recall that it syncs up very nicely."

Katakalos and Lowry's outside collaborations influence the suggestions that they bring to Lehigh's theatre department. Most recently, they've put their ain creative spin on contemporary productions like Rebecca Feldman's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, for which Katakalos designed the costumes and Lowry the lighting, and Aaron Posner's Stupid F*@#ing Bird, which featured a set by Katakalos and lighting past Lowry.

"We're really similar in lots of ways, merely I recall we also complement each other," says Katakalos. "I love creating something and and then having someone else do their magic on it and brand it look a meg times improve than I ever could have imagined myself. That's the all-time thing well-nigh working with really collaborative designers. … You want to work with someone who is excited past the challenges you've created. That's much more exciting. You'll become a much improve play if you exercise those things."

Katakalos likens their work to "visual poetry."

"It's what playwrights do, in a manner," she says. "Playwrights are distilled, often similar poets are. They don't write a novel, they write a play. It's 90 minutes, not 500 pages, and I recollect scenic designers, lighting designers, theatrical designers, we do that as well. We're creating a visual metaphor for those words."

That visual metaphor can be different with each version of a particular production, depending on the approach of the designers involved.

"Every designer has a dissimilar accept and every director has a dissimilar take, and that, I recall, is the beauty of theatre," says Katakalos.

"You're answering a question in your own way, finding your own voice to it," says Lowry.

A world premiere, notwithstanding, offers designers the opportunity to do something fifty-fifty more unique: They get to "[reply] a question no 1 else has answered before considering it hasn't been posed yet," says Lowry.

"Yous're working straight with playwrights who are alive, who are at that place at the table, who wrote the play and are still writing information technology—even into previews," Katakalos explains. "That's a completely different experience. It's very heady equally a designer because y'all get to be part of a artistic procedure that's quite different. Yous're certainly reacting to the work, just y'all're influencing information technology as well by request questions."

"Your trouble-solving on a [new] play volition shape it," says Lowry. ""At that place are instances when playwrights rewrite things based on your approach to something they've written, which may not have been possible in the literal way, so y'all collaborate on a new solution."

Many designers shy away from new works, Katakalos says, considering the procedure presents many unknowns—and ofttimes countless redesigns. Those challenges, still, present remarkable opportunities for collaboration.

"I just love that level of collaboration [on a world premiere] where there'south and so much trust in the room that anyone can come up up with any idea at whatsoever moment, and I'yard no longer the designer, and you lot're no longer the director, and you're no longer the actor," Katakalos says. "Those things disappear in those generative moments, in that decision-making, and information technology'south very exciting. It makes actually good art when you do that, when those things are stripped away. You take that trust, and you just want the best play you can make."

This story appears as "Visual Poetry" in the 2018 Lehigh Enquiry Review.

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Source: https://www2.lehigh.edu/news/visual-poetry-through-theatrical-design

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