Twelfth Night the Musical
Director/Choreographer: Courtney Young
Music Director: Jeff Thiess
Scenic Designer: Cali Trainor
Lighting Designer: AK Cox
Assist. Lighting Designer: Maddy McCarthy
Sound Designer: Molly Danieli
Costume Designer: Andrea Mejuto
Production Stage Manager: Bailey Shea
I worked directly for the lighting designer, AK Cox, to take notes, help keep the draftings to the standard, update draftings, magic sheets, and lightwright files as needed. Additionally, I was put in charge of all spotlight tracking and training my spot ops to execute the cues for the duration of the run of the show.
This story needs to be told because no one should have to live life as someone who they are not. Exploring your identity can be nerve wracking and lonely, but in the end it will have been worth it to become a stronger version of yourself.
The lighting goals for this show were to create a world that is everywhere but nowhere, a place that transcends our knowledge of identity, is somewhat familiar but still an atmosphere that you have to explore to understand.
In the Spring of 2022, I was the assistant Lighting Designer for the production of Twelfth Night the Musical at Ithaca College in the Hoerner, the mainstage proscenium theater. This project started at the end of September 2022 and I worked on it until the end of the show run on April 2nd, 2023.
Twelfth Night the Musical is a musical rendition of the Shakespeare classic Twelfth Night. It is about a woman named Viola who gets in a shipwreck and is separated from her twin brother. In order to survive on her own, she dresses as a man. This causes some confusion in the town and results in love triangles that were never intended to be. Through her journey, Viola is able to find her identity within herself, being able to survive as an individual without her brother attached to her. She is able to find comfort in who is as a person instead of trying to be who she is not.
This story needs to be told because no one should have to live life as someone who they are not. Exploring your identity can be nerve wracking and lonely, but in the end it will have been worth it to become a stronger version of yourself.
To achieve these goals, we created lighting atmospheres similar to outdoor festivals and clubs. Along with these atmospheres, we used lanterns that hung from the grid and twinkle lights on the trees to work into the world of the Island of Illyria without becoming too specifically identifiable to stay on theme with our design statements.