PMD2/3 Set Design development

As I completed my role as lighting technician i decided to help out Set designers Bella and Charlotte with decoration of props with help from Hannah.

Myself and Hannah contributed to the decoration of the centre piece of the Tea party set design being the cake stand. Originally the stand created by Bella and Charlotte was just painted black. I admired how the tired was offset to show crookedness and contortion and the colour was suitable to the theme of death. 

Evaluation

To develop this prop for the set design Myself and Hannah decided to add cotton pads onto the tiers to give a "cobweb effect". The purpose of this was to compliment the fact that this is Death's first tea party and due to her eerie and lonely nature, her extravagant items such as the cake stand are under consumed hence the aging . However now Death has stolen a puppet for a friend, she is clueless on the typical conventions of a tea party hence why we avoided creating a pretty and clean cake stand.

Furthermore the use of a picnic basket was to show the audience the confusion of Iyla's character Death, due to her not understanding how humans hold parties. This is further emphasised through Death's constant questions directed at her puppet (Courtney) about the Tea party such as 
- Am i dressed for a Tea party?
-What kind of tea is this?: Afternoon tea?, Royal tea?, High tea?
The use of questions are better understood with the props which also help contrast the pre-show performed in mime.

Here is an invitation created by Bella. The purpose of the invites was to help the audience understand the context and scenario of the performance. The invitation reads

 " Death invites welcomes you to... A voluptuous scene, the masquerade ball, Bold and Fiery, the grand stroke of twelve"

Evaluation

The purpose of crossing out invites and replacing with welcomes, removes the appearance of choice. Death is no longer allowing us guests and the audience a choice to decline the invitation, instead they are welcomed and assured entrance.

Additionally the phrase "a voluptuous scene" is a direct reference to Iyla's line during the Masquerade scene as she welcomes us to "the masquerade ball". Also included is a link to our original stimuli the Mask of Red Death. Of which had a constant theme of time, particularly the strike at midnight of which the plague was unleashed.

The invites are given out by Death after the embalming scene as we are all fighting to live. Of which the invite resurrects us in time to attend the masquerade of death.

To allow the audience to understand the concept of the invites we also printed out extras and will lay them onto the audience members seats so that we use a more Brecht style performance by breaking the fourth wall and involving them into the piece by welcoming them to the masquerade. It also allows the audience to read the invitation and comprehend and interpret the scene more effectively and accurately.