Theatre in the Octagon
Posted by Anthony Moseley on 5/22/2008
When conceptualizing the environment for this year’s Sketchbook Festival in the Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, we started with the ideas of intimacy and immersion. Last year we had opened up the playing area to include everywhere, and it made for a unique, spatially liberal experience. There was no separation between the space of the performer and the audience member, and we felt it worked well; but we are always pushing for change and evolution at Sketchbook, and this year is no different.
We thought if we could focus the energy of the garage into a single area it would really give the audience a powerful experience. With a capacity of only 102, we figured if we set up the space in the round, the audience could sit in 3 rows, and that would make sure it was intimate. So, then we focused on immersion. We started with the concept of an octagonal playing space with audience on risers on 4 sides (like a square), inside a circular curtain or screen that would also serve as a rear projection video screen. We did the math and found there was enough room in the garage for the throw distance necessary to link the 4 video projections together into a 360 Degree video. Oh boy, that’s immersion. An audience of 102, all within the first 3 rows of the playing space, surrounded by a circular video that could do a full 360! (Imagine a fish swimming around the perimeter of the space, being passed from one projection source to another seamlessly.) We even found a string curtain that could be hung in a circle and was made of rear project-able fabric, but fire proofing and cost left us with the fear of a $5000 tangled mess. So we went back to the drawing board. This left us to make the surrounding video on the 4 diagonal sides of an octagon. We were no longer able to do the 360 degree thing, but I think that might have caused a little motion sickness anyway.
All the while, we researched ideas that linked to our concept, finding great stuff about the I Ching and Golden Ratio. We were also inspired about the feeling of a “virtual campfire” where stories were shared. During tech we got to finally play around with the video and the 3-D sound system. We added the SUBMIT ensemble (the group of 5 actors who acts as Sketchbook guides while sharing audience submissions and changing over the sets), bells, live music by Miles and Misha, and Jeremy Getz’s moving lights – and we’ve ended up with an intimate, yet technologically advanced environment, with a core of organic elements. I hope you can check it out before it’s gone on June 15. Then we get working on next year’s evolution.