DAY 011 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Design at some point just becomes personal practice, which (for me) was a devolution of neatly boundaried processes and an evolution into a holistic mess of an approach. We educators hopefully walk a path of acknowledging dually that there are many pathways while mapping one or two to take. Were I to tell my students that there is one guaranteed way to step through a design process that is going to net success, that would be a falsehood.

I’ve joined Three Sisters at the Clarence Brown a couple months later than everyone else on the design team. That led to a more aggressive, analytical first read since I was going to be jumping into a meeting a couple days later. I took copious notes, did some research-lite online. The question is how and when does that transfer into the groan and ache of a life that hasn’t turned out the way you imagined, a time that has slipped through your fingers and a place somehow beyond your grasp?

In my practice, I truly believe that (in what is a severe bastardization of one of the laws of thermodynamics) no energy is ever truly wasted. The analytical and intuitive energy expended all benefits the end product. For me the most liminal moments, pregnant with possibility, in the design process are the following:

• First read through by cast

• First pass at the sound cue list

• Designer run (often my favorite performance of any play I work on)

• First run after tech, whether that be w/ or w/o dress