Role: Co-Media Designer with Jacob Pinholster

Director: Megan Weaver

Venue: The Galvin Playhouse, ASU

Summary: Nation is an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s novel of the same name set in an alternative history of our world in the 1860s. A young boy named Mau is the sole survivor of a Tsunami that destroys all the indigenous people of his island who soon discovers a young English girl shipwrecked on the island from the same storm. Together the fashion a new nation with various indigenous people from other islands looking for refuge. The set for the production featured two large hung from the fly system that could be flown in at various heights to indicate changes in scene. Design for the production involved compositing live shadow puppetry into projections and the development of an original symbolic lexicon of icons representing the religious system of the island.

Two projector system served by Dataton’s Watchout for playback, projection mapping, and realtime compositing of live video capturing shadow puppetry on stage.

Rather than illustrative designs for settings, we developed a lexicon of symbols designed to look like woodcuts depicting the dramatic arc of each scene. 2D animations rigged to resemble shadow puppets allowed a seamless integration of shadow puppetry on stage.

Several indigenous gods operated as virtual shadow puppet characters that were projected and timed to interact with performers.