I have added production photos from Scorched at Silk Road Theatre Project.  It runs through November 21, so there are still plenty of opportunities to see a truly haunting story.  Its the Jeff Recommended Chicago premiere.

Into the Big Green Meadow took place at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week to four packed audiences of delighted (and delightfully well-behaved) kids.  At Symphony Hall.  Which is huge and beautiful!  The show was a tribute to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, featuring the childhood favorite Peter and the Wolf.  I will post some production photos soon, but I will take a moment to salute the always brilliant work of Marianna Csaszar and Alison Siple.  David Kersnar, my grad school chum who I haven’t worked with since his thesis project Marisol, directed the show that was co-produced with Lookingglass.  And Brett Schneider brought the magic and the whole thing was…magical!

And in Old projects that are News:  I will be re-designing lights for the re-mount of Wind in the Willows at City Lit this December.  City Lit Artistic Director Terry McCabe will direct Doug Post’s script.  Its a musical–look out for dancing Weasels and Toad!

By Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau
Silk Road Theatre Project
October 2010
Directed by Dale Heinen
Set design by Tom Burch
Projection design by Mike Tutaj
Costume design by Carole Blanchard
Sound design by Peter Storms

Production photos

Design process images

The design challenge of Wajdi Mouawad’s Scorched is to create a space that supports a story that flows in and out of time and place, sliding backwards and forwards from the present tense to decades earlier, from North America to the Middle East, intersecting as the two adult twin siblings discover the secrets of their mother’s past.  Using clues she has left behind for them, the twins travel from Montreal to Lebanon, working backwards to uncover the truth, while their mother’s story is unveiled to the audience in scenes that move forward and overlap with the twins’ journey. Tom Burch’s set evoked the bullet-ridden buildings and the hot, dry texture of the Middle East, while a large, modern, plastic-looking slab seems to have crash-landed on that environment, providing a ground zero for the present-tense, present-continent scenes. The lighting design idea was inspired by the burning-hot photography of Rebecca Guberman Bloom, contrasted with the cool contemporary interiors of photographer Doug Dubois. Tourism photos of Lebanon provided an inspiration for the romantic lavender side-lighting that underscores the love story fighting for a place in a war-torn environment.