Artist Research

The theatre artist I have decided to research is Andrew Lloyd Webber. Andrew Lloyd Webber was born Baron Lloyd-Webber in Kensington, London, England on March 22, 1948. Webber started writing his own music at a young age, writing his first published suite of six pieces at the age of nine. He also put on productions with his brother Julian and his aunt Viola in his toy theater. Webber's first major collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, a musical based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo. In 1968, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were commissioned to write a piece for Colet Court which resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiche a number of musical styles such as Calypso and country music. One of the biggest hits of all time for the duo of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber was the production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway in 1971 and chronicles the last week of Jesus Christ’s life in Jerusalem. Lloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write Evita, a musical based on the life of Eva Peron.
In 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber released The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom of the Opera was based on the French novel Le Fantome de l'Opera by author Gaston Leroux. The Phantom of the Opera opened in London's West End. The production was directed by Hal Prince, choreographed by Gillian Lynne, designed by Maria Bjornson, with lighting by Andrew Bridge. In 2009, the Broadway production marked its nine thousandth performance, making it the longest running show on Broadway in history, surpassing the former leader, Cats. Lloyd Webber was asked to write a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and composed "Amigos Para Siempre — Friends for Life" with Don Black providing the lyrics. This song was performed by Sarah Brightman and Jose Carreras. Lloyd Webber had toyed with the idea of writing a musical based on Billy Wilder's critically acclaimed movie, Sunset Boulevard, since the early 1970s when he saw the film, but the project didn't come to fruition until after the completion of Aspects of Love when the composer finally managed to secure the rights from Paramount Pictures. The composer worked with two collaborators, as he had done on Aspects of Love; this time Christopher Hampton and Don Black shared equal credit for the book and lyrics. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 12 July 1993, and ran for 1,529 performances. In spite of the show's popularity and extensive run in London's West End, it lost money due to the sheer expense of the production.
Lloyd Webber's many other musical theatre works include Whistle Down the Wind, a musical written with lyrics supplied by rock legend Jim Steinman. Originally opening in Washington, Lloyd Webber was reportedly not happy with the casting or Harold Prince's production and the show was subsequently revised for a London staging directed by Gale Edwards, the production is probably most notable for the Number One hit from Boyzone "No Matter What" which only left the UK charts when the price of the CD single was changed to drop it out of the official top ten.
Personally, I find the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber highly entertaining and brilliant. There is a definite reason why his musicals are the longest running shows on Broadway of all time. Almost anyone from any culture can enjoy his work. After learning everything that I have learned in this class I definitely have garnered a greater appreciation for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work, and for that matter, all play writes and musical composers. The depth and passion that people like Andrew Lloyd Webber have for their art should never be overlooked. The production of a live stage play can rival that of a major Hollywood film, and can be even more difficult to perform, as all of the performances of a stage play are conducted live and in chronological sequence. There’s no room for error in a live stage production. I find Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work and drive to succeed a great inspiration for myself to strive to achieve my own goals and aspirations in life. I find that if Andrew Lloyd Webber was able to accomplish all of his amazing successes than the small meaningless goals I set for myself in life should not be all that difficult to attain.

Theater Profile

For my theater profile, I have elected to review and write on the famous Pittsburgh Playhouse. The Pittsburgh Playhouse is owned and operated by Point Park University. Point Park University is a liberal arts university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Point Park University was formerly known as Point Park College until the name was revised in 2004 to show the diversity of classes available. Point Park is a master’s level university whose background is largely founded in strong liberal arts tradition. Point Park University has eleven graduate programs offered through its School of Arts and Sciences, School of Business, School of Communication and the Conservatory of Performing Arts. It is through the Conservatory of Performing Arts that the university operates the Pittsburgh Playhouse. The Conservatory of Performing Arts is an audition based program. Only 7 percent of those who audition for the program are accepted. The conservatory attracts students from all across the country and all around the world. Point Park University's Pittsburgh Playhouse is the performing arts center of Point Park University and the Conservatory of Performing Arts. The Pittsburgh Playhouse maintains a full schedule of shows and performances. Annually, the Pittsburgh Playhouse hosts eighteen major productions with 235 performances entertaining more than 30,000 audience patrons. Point Park University’s Conservatory of Performing Arts is comprised of professional, working artists dedicated to a conservatory approach to training. The Conservatory of Performing Arts includes five performance companies. These performance companies are the REP, Point Park University’s professional theatre company, and the Conservatory Theatre Company, Conservatory Dance Company and Playhouse Jr. The Conservatory Theatre Company, Conservatory Dance Company and Playhouse Jr. are all student companies. The Playhouse’s professional theater company is the REP. The REP is composed of professionally trained actors and actresses and puts on the majority of the major productions at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. The Conservatory Dance Company and Playhouse Jr. are smaller, less professional performance companies. These companies are sometimes composed of students who get to work along side more experienced artists and get to try their hand at the live stage production environment. Point Park Universities Pittsburgh Playhouse owns and operates three state of the art theaters. The three theaters are the Raugh theater, the Rockwell theater, and the Studio theater. These theaters offer modern seating and high quality sound and lighting systems. The Pittsburgh Playhouse produces mostly contemporary shows, but is also known to tackle just about any genre and a diverse selection of material. The mission of Point Parks’ Pittsburgh Playhouse is “to commit to the development of the craft, the engagement of the imagination and the cultivation of skills that enable students to pursue careers as working artists.” The Pittsburgh Playhouse is currently performing the shows Seussical and The Dark Side of Zylo’s Moon. Several past shows include The Crucible, The Philadelphia Story, The Wizard of Oz, Robin Hood, Hair, Romeo and Juliet, The Elephant Man, and Alice in Wonderland, just to name a few. Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse has had a long list of famous alumni. Dennis Miller, Keystone Oaks high school graduate, studied and performed at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Other Pittsburgh Playhouse performers have gone on to star in major Hollywood films. A current director at the playhouse, John Amplas, starred in several of film maker George Romero’s movies. I find Point Park Universities Pittsburgh Playhouse very appealing because of their home grown nature. They take pride in their heritage and Pittsburgh roots, and are a great outlet for up and coming local actors and actresses to get a taste for professional stage production. The Pittsburgh Playhouse has been an inspirational and educational tool for the past 50 years and I have no doubt that it will continue to carry on as a great production company for a long time.

Relating Theatre to my Major

I think of all the courses that I have taken in my college experience; I find that theater is probably the one that relates to real life the most. Because, what is life but just a charade? From the time we are cognitive to the time we die, life is nothing but a charade and a popularity contest. The ability to be a good actor is a key factor in life, from being able to lie convincingly to your family and friends, to being able to make yourself appear better than you really are to a potential employer so you can eliminate the competition. It was quoted in a film that to be a good spy, all you have to do is be a good actor. Find the best actor in the world and you’ve got the most hard to detect spy in the world. Being so involved and entwined in everyday life, in no doubt what so ever does theater have a major connection to my major. My major is a Bachelor of Science degree in applied physics; specifically in the field of electro-optics. Theater relates directly to an applied physics electro optics degree in both a literal and physical sense as well as a spiritual and holistic nature. In the physical state, electro optics is a major factor in the world of modern stage production. Stage performances would not have advanced much beyond the days of William Shakespeare if it were not for electro optics. For it was electricity that made plays indoors a feasible reality. Now, with the advent of electricity, a play could be performed in the dead of night during winter months in an enclosed auditorium, safe and away from the hostile elements of the outdoors. No longer did you have to burn polluting oil lamps that provided very little and very inconsistent lighting. Now the stage could be dressed and decorated as it would be outdoors. The whole theater experience changed with the application of electrical lighting. The mood could be set and changed just at the flick of a switch. Color gels could be applied over electric spot lights to create atmosphere. Atmosphere could change with the speed and rhythm of the delivery of an actor’s lines. Yes, the world of theater has much to thank the world of electro optics for. From Benjamin Franklin, to George Westinghouse, to Nikola Tesla, the world of theater has been forever changed by the work of these great pioneers of science. From a spiritual and holistic standpoint, the world of electro optics has much to thank theater for. There has been much drama in the world of applied science and without theater there to help express and define the actions people have, this planet may have become nothing more than a planet of psychotic, bipedal apes. It could have been seen as nothing short of a farcical stage act when the hack that everyone knows as Thomas Edison fired the brilliant engineer and scientist Nikola Tesla, and told the poor timid Tesla to never return to his laboratory. Thomas Edison was merely afraid that the young and successful scientist would eventually upstage (silly pun) his work. All that is needed is for more people to accept and understand theater better, and it would take hold of their lives and be such a benefit to their daily activities. People who are born into average middle class families in modern western nations are so fortunate indeed to be in their position. Scores of millions of other people from other places in the world do not have the luxury or the privilege to enjoy the artwork and amazing performances that this country provides to its citizens.

My short play

(This script is set up as more of a screenplay treatment, but can be adapted to the stage.)
The players: Eddie, Linda, Mike

The setting: a secluded college town in the rolling hills of the Pennsylvania backwoods.


The scene opens on a Saturday morning, in the house that the three college students have rented for the semester.

Mike: Eddie, wake up.
Eddie: (groggy) What’s up man?
Mike: Something weird is going on.
Eddie: Huh? What do you mean? Where’s Linda?
Mike: Linda’s still asleep. It’s 6:30.
Eddie: Then what the fuck are you waking me up for?
Mike: I told you, something weird is going on. All the power is out. No phone, no radio, nothing.
Eddie: Is this supposed to be blowing my skirt up or something?
Mike: I think we’re under attack.
Eddie: Jesus, I knew you were paranoid, but not stone cold nuts.
Mike: I’m fucking serious dude! There’s some crazy shit going on. People are attacking and killing each other!
Eddie: What!? Says who?
Mike: I saw it myself. I just walked down to the store for a paper and coffee. This group of people had a guy down on the ground and they were tearing him apart! They were fucking eating him! It’s all over town.
Eddie: I don’t understand. How could this be happening? (towards the stairs) Linda! Get up honey!
Mike: I don’t know. An Army helicopter just flew over shouting information over a loudspeaker and dropping these leaflets. They’re telling us to evacuate.
Linda: Is something wrong?
Eddie: (looking at a leaflet) Holy shit, this is for real.
Mike: I told you. (screams from outside)
Eddie: Oh my God! They’re next door. They’ve got Mr. Mahler!
Mike: We need to get the fuck out, right now!
Eddie: Linda! Get your ass down here! We’ve got to go!
Linda: What the hell….Oh my God!
Mike: Let’s go! Get dressed fast! We’ll take my truck.
Linda: What the hell is going on!?
Eddie: I don’t know hon. We just have to get outta here right now.
(all three pile into Mike’s ’78 Ford Ranger)
Mike: Alright, they were saying that there was a rescue facility set up at the state police barracks in Homer City. We just gotta get there.
Linda: This can’t be happening. Why can’t I just wake up?
Mike: This is the real deal Lin.
Eddie: Look out!
(the truck slams into one of the attackers and sends it into the telephone pole breaking it in half, the truck screeches to a halt)
Eddie: Oh fuck man.
Mike: I couldn’t stop in time. I…
Linda: Look at it.
Eddie: It, it can’t be.
Mike: How the fuck can it still be moving? I had to of killed that bastard!
Eddie: It’s not living. It can’t be. No living thing could have survived that!
Linda: Then how the fuck is it getting up!?
Mike: It’s got to be a resurrected corpse. There’s no other explanation.
Eddie: You mean a zombie?
Mike: No, not a fucking zombie. I mean a reanimated dead body. These things aren’t zombies!
Linda: Can we argue semantics later? Let’s fucking go!
Mike: We’re outta here!
(driving down the country road, they come upon a blockade of living dead)
Eddie: How are we gonna get through that?
Linda: Can we just plow through?
Mike: There’s too many. I think we might get stuck.
(a loud rumbling rises from behind the truck like rolling thunder)
Eddie: What’s that?
Linda: It’s a helicopter!
Mike: An Apache! I hope they see us.
(the helicopter opens up on the blockade with machine gun and rocket fire, opening a path in the road)
Mike: Hell yeah Mother Fucker!!
Eddie: Yeah man!! That’s the shit right there!
Linda: Thank God someone’s trying to help us!
Mike: Here we go!
(arriving at the police station, refugees are being evacuated in helicopters)
Soldier 1: This way! Let’s go!
Linda: What’s going on?
Soldier 2: Just get on the chopper!
(lifting off, they can look back and see the remains of the town)
Pilot 1: (over the radio) Roger, we’re 15 miles south right now, clear of the hot zone.
Pilot 2 to crew chief: Here we go! 15 seconds!
Crew Chief: Okay, everybody face down right now! Face down to the floor!
(a blinding white light fills the cabin then fades, looking back towards the town, Mike, Eddie, and Linda can see a billowing white cloud climbing fast into the morning sky, the shock wave ten miles wide emanating out from the center at the speed of sound)

Set Design

The play that I have decided to design a set for is Rent. Rent is a rock opera with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. It tells a story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The most basic requirement of a set is to serve the text and the performance. All sets should provide a playable space that allows actors to move about and make their entrances and exits freely. This being said, set designers need to consider a text very carefully to make note of all special needs of the production. As stated above, Rent takes place in New York’s Lower East Side. To facilitate a set that fits the production, I think research must be conducted of the area that the set is to emulate. The Lower East Side is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. One of the oldest neighborhoods of the city, the Lower East Side has long been a lower-class worker neighborhood and often a poor and ethnically diverse section of New York. As well as Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, and other ethnic groups, it once had a sizeable German population. I think for the set there should be a consistent background of the façade of a tenement building with a large, black wrought iron fire escape going up the side. The fire escape being a key feature in one of the play’s acts. The majority of the set should be fabricated from the lightest and cheapest materials available thus saving cost on construction and saving time between set changes and requiring the use of minimal stage hands.

Lighting Design

I have decided to design the lighting for the musical Rent. There are several goals to be accounted for when designing the lighting for a play. One of the first and most important goals is creating the mood. Creating an atmosphere that provides a logical surrounding for the character’s behavior is a key to good lighting design. The mood in Rent shifts dramatically from happy and

joyous to very morose and sad. Therefore lights should be brought up to high intensity with bright colors for happy sequences and lowered with darker colors for more sorrowful scenes. Another goal for stage lighting is providing selective visibility and focus. Lighting illuminates the stage, revealing colors and forms. There obviously needs to be enough lighting to adequately illuminate anything on stage that is needed to be seen. For this type of lighting I think that there are going to be many types of color filters that can be selected from the sound and lighting board. Also, I think that there should be color gels for every color of the spectrum. That would give best color resolution across the stage. A main white spotlight is also a necessity. This spotlight should put out no less than ten kilowatts at maximum output and should have a variable aperture that can narrow and widen the beam at the discretion of the operator. The operator should also be able to competently operate the device and should have a que sheet with them and be in direct contact with the director at all times. The spotlight, as well as all of the stage lights should be able to fade in and out. All of the stage lights, with the exception of the primary spotlight, should be hung directly above the stage. Lights hung above the stage have the advantage of being able to cover the entire length of the stage with little obstruction. Many audience members have complained about stage lighting that interferes with their line of sight, so I believe that this type of lighting should be avoided. Actors should be reminded to always look into the spotlight when ever the rest of the stage lights are down as to make their eyes twinkle.

Costume Design

I have decided to attempt to design costumes for the critically acclaimed Jonathan Larson rock opera, Rent. For the costume design to fit a play properly, one must consider the background of each character that you are trying to design for. For designs to be both expressive and functional, costumers need to consider not only the director’s concept, but also what physical actions the actor will be performing on stage, the psychological nature of the character, as well as the limitations and potential of the actor. Since I’m going to have to design these costumes for unknown actors, or rather design the costumes more for the characters than the actors who play them, I should be able to have more freedom with what the final design should look like. Rent takes place in 1989, therefore the costumes should be mostly contemporary. The four main characters for Rent that I have decided to design for are that of Mark Cohen, Roger Davis, Tom Collins, and Angel Dumott Shunard. The first character, Mark Cohen is a struggling documentary filmmaker and Roger’s roommate. For Mark, I see that he should be subtle and restrained and for his personality his outfit should be equally reserved. For Mark’s costume I imagine plain kaki slacks, red wool knit sweater and a black and white striped scarf. Roger’s character is a once successful, but now, struggling musician who is HIV positive. Being a struggling musician, I see Roger with long hair, torn blue jeans, T-shirt, blue jean jacket and an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. Tom Collins is a former teacher and part time roommate to Mark and Roger. I imagine Tom being more refined and well dressed, with nice leather shoes, slacks, shirt tie and jacket, and a long winter coat. Angel is a young drag queen, street percussionist with AIDS, and Tom’s love interest. For Angel I see tight nylon stockings, a skirt, and a short pink jacket. These characters are all very unique in personality and their costume design is sure to be as distinct.