Theatre is all about telling stories and no matter how out of the box or realistic the piece may be, there is always some sort of real-world connections to it. The way that we connect intimately to anything is through relating to it someway, whether we are empathizing or have felt it first hand. Theatre tells stories this way through the performance, the writing, and the design.

As a designer, I have consistently been taught the importance of research when working on a production. This process is fascinating to me, especially the raw portrayal of “the good” and “the bad” aspects of life. When designing we present the real situations and hardships that the characters are facing during the story.

Throughout this past semester, there have been multiple occurrences when I realized that theatre has a direct and abstract form of portraying real events. Designers will constantly make choices on how to represent the real world. Sometimes, the designer will choose a literal and direct representation. This will be wallpaper from the time period when the play took place or the type of kitchen that they own. On the other hand, designers will sometimes create motifs or forms of symbolism to represent reality. These would be factors that represent eras or locations, a set that has a similar shape or likeness to a steam engine maybe for a play that takes place during the industrial revolution.

Another notion that I realized over the course of the past three months is that some real-world scenarios don’t get complete exposure in theatre. There are some historic events that aren’t fully expressed, they rarely will be explicitly demonstrated. Sometimes artists will metaphorically signify an event, but there will always be the few brave artists that will have no shame in presenting the whole reality. Watching college performances have opened my eyes to so many subjects that were “too sensitive” to speak about in high school.

Below is an image of primary research that I learned about and did a ton of throughout this semester.

This stage is significant because it is like a test for one’s idea. The development process can either break or make an idea, it is the point in which ideas change and go from good to marvelous. There are a few aspects within this category that I have found necessary in my process to complete a design. 

The first is to constantly keep the final product in mind. This can help a creator when they doubt the stability and integrity of their design, it helps a designer to stay motivated. It is also a reminder that in a project, there is always room for improvement, it is never too late to change, and that inspiration can always be drawn from any project, whether it is or isn’t finished. 

This concept always seemed understandable to me, but the Cohen New Works Festival opened my eyes and helped me reflect. I learned that developing ideas cannot be done without collaboration. These two go hand in hand at all times, whether the development is being done with other artists, or one is taking inspiration from another work, even the process of finding how to present your work. Developing ideas for a NWF piece as a designer also helped me understand the value of patience and communication. This year’s festival in particular was a strange process due to COVID safety rules, because of this my process in developing ideas included communicating with the director, the other designers, and even the actors at all times. 

This course also allowed me to grasp the entirety of what is developing ideas. PCP gave me the opportunity to understand that when I am developing ideas, especially with others, it is critical to have courage when suggesting ideas and to release any insecurities related to one’s creative processes. This all helped me comprehend that if I am not ready to present an idea that I am developing, then it is not ready to move on to the delivering stage. 

Below I demonstrate a small portion of what goes into developing ideas.

A creator, in my opinion, cannot get anywhere without any concepts or specific subjects that inspire them to fully express a function to their piece.  Without inspiration, pieces would feel too dull or completely fabricated, there would be no traces of humanity and creativity. 

Over time inspirations have become more significant to me and the way I expand my process. If I were to compare my inspirations from a year ago to the ones I have today, there would be a notable difference. Back then my perspective was that only things meant to inspire could be forms of inspiration, but recently I have found that everything around me can be a form of inspiration. When I look back, my sources were so limited and vague, but the past year has truly changed this aspect of design for me. 

As this semester has passed by, I have been able to develop more notions that inspire me. In the beginning, I realized that innovative forms of theatre, such as making the “impossible” feel like a reality and deeply connecting with others particularly resonated with me. Being able to evoke a feeling of awe and wonder within someone and getting to watch that ignite in them has always inspired me in a distinctive way. 

After analyzing and thinking over what I have learned and experienced in the past three months, I have discovered that visual aesthetics and forming collaborations also inspire my work. This past semester I took a design course in which I was able to fully explore the visual and physical aspects that make up an aesthetic for a show. I had always taken aesthetics into consideration, but I had never fully realized how they impact the storytelling aspect of a design. Meanwhile, in the performance as a collaborative practice course, I’ve been able to understand more about collaborations. I've gathered that working and devising ideas with others is extremely valuable and it has become one of my sources of inspiration. One that can inspire me to participate in a new project or motivate me to ask for critiques on my pieces.

Below is a form of media that I use to keep track of my everyday visual inspirations. 

Things then changed when I moved to the US. My other grandmother lived in the very small city of Newark, California, we moved into her 3 bedroom apartment right before I turned 10 years old. For the first three years, feeling normal was very difficult for me so the last thing I wanted to think about was what I would be when I grew up. That was until I reached middle school.

In my seventh-grade year I went to the movie theatre with my family and we watched Into the Woods, and after watching it I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a film director. This small phase of my life lasted for about a year and a half. I was fascinated by this career up until I was confronted with “okay, but what do you think you’ll actually pursue?” as if what I wanted wasn’t good enough. For a while after my response became “I don’t know” when people asked what do you want to do when you grow up?

But freshman year of high school I was introduced to theatre. I moved once again, but this time to San Antonio, Texas, where I watched a One Act production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and I completely fell in love with the stage. Sophomore year of high school I fully indulged myself in theatre, especially the scenic crew, and right before the beginning of junior year I was asked to be the scenic head. For all of my junior and senior years, I spent mornings and nights working on every production, one after another. I went from painting sets to carving pieces of foam, all the way to choosing the paint colors, and sitting behind a laptop with my director while looking at a SketchUp tab. I became so passionate about the process that when productions were over I would feel almost empty inside. That’s how I really knew that it was what I wanted to do.

Funny enough, 6 years old me was in some way right. Designing would somehow be incorporated into what I wanted to do when I grew up.