Pacific Conservatory Theatre (PCPA) cast, crew, and creative team assigned to the upcoming production of Man of La Mancha all assembled for a design presentation on May 26, marking the first look at the set and costume design, as well as the first time the entire team came together under one roof.
PCPA’s artistic director Mark Booher welcomed the resident artists, returning traveling artists, and newcomers to the meeting, which was attended by PCPA’s VIP subscribers and the Sun. The focus was on the massive amount of work ahead, the gravitas of the play, and its importance in the history of stagecraft as well as literature—it’s derived from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote.
“You all know, for those of you who are literature geeks, Cervantes and Shakespeare were living at the same time, really close to one another in Europe, so when we think about our intellectual legacy and the great art makers of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment,” he said, “I’m excited that we’re sort of in the great, long centipede of truth and beauty that comes from the Renaissance to the Central Coast of California where we are still torch bearers bringing light into a world that often is full of darkness.”
The cast and crew members stood and introduced themselves before director for the production Mark Herrier, a PCPA alumnus and Lompoc native who went on to act in film and television including Porky’s and Murder She Wrote, spoke before the group, offering a rallying cry to the importance of the production and the art form in general.
Herrier spoke briefly about his history with PCPA as a conservatory student before expressing his gratitude to be involved in such an iconic play as Man of La Mancha.
“As the theater gods will allow, you may never get a chance to do this again, and if you do get a chance to do it again, the odds are you won’t be playing these roles again,” Herrier said. “So this is it, this is our shot at getting this right.”
The epic journey that the group embarked on that day began with a presentation of the visual aspects of the play: the set and costume design. Resident scenic designer Jason Bolen’s 1/2-inch model of the set was the centerpiece of the meeting, and he delivered a presentation accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation including influences and early sketches.
The play takes place primarily in a dungeon employed by the Spanish Inquisition, the backdrop through which Don Quixote achieves his triumphant transformation. Bolen shared his inspirations and aspirations for the set to be constructed at the open-air Solvang Festival Theatre.
“One of the first pieces of visual interpretation Mark gave us was Dante’s Inferno, the spiraling, descending layers of hell was kind of inspiring, and it was something I tried to keep in mind throughout the whole thing,” he said. “Another piece I first got really interested in looking at was Bosch, though not necessarily for the architectural information it had in it, but the energy; I thought it was the type of energy that we needed to have onstage.”
The dank, blue-green palette of the cavernous dungeon included several levels for various forms of action, with multiple set pieces designed to be movable and malleable in the stage space. The presentation gave the set shop, including builders and painters, an idea of what the finished product would look like. It also gave the actors a sight of the world in which their characters would live, breathe, and perhaps die, something of paramount importance while building a character.
Costume designer Eddy Barrows gave the next presentation, sharing slides of original pastel and watercolor paintings of his planned costumes. He asked the actors and costume makers to come to his shop and view the originals, as each piece is essentially the skin of each character.
The design meeting was more than just a get-together of skilled professionals beginning work on a play, it was a meeting of artistic minds devoted to creating something great. The act of assembling to view what the play would actually look like is vitally important to a production, for everyone involved, explained director Herrier.
“It’s going to be their home, quite literally, for the next few months,” he said. “Behavior and character and everything is all determined by your physical surroundings. We all start, like hopscotch, at the first square and all move forward from there.”
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Arts Editor Joe Payne is always at square one. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 4-11, 2015.
