Orlando

Design Overview

Our production of Orlando, Sarah Ruhl’s stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, called for a visual environment that could shift fluidly across centuries, geographies, and identities without losing cohesion or emotional depth. Our team approached this by merging scenic and projection design into a single responsive system that could keep pace with the play’s rapid changes in location and tone, while reinforcing its poetic structure.

Research Focus

This production provided a focused opportunity to advance my ongoing research into integrative media systems for live performance. I established project-specific goals that included experimenting with AI-assisted image generation, exploring new features in Isadora 4 (especially Python scripting), and building technical bridges between media playback and the automation data network in TFMA’s newly outfitted Proscenium Theatre.

The core focus of this research was to maximize collaborative responsiveness: I built an interface that enabled live adjustments during technical rehearsals, allowing the team to easily participate in the refinement of media elements and moments in real time. This capability proved critical given the compressed three-day window to program and integrate media into a fast-paced, two-hour performance.

Outcome

To support the demands of this production, I designed and programmed a custom projection-mapping system in Isadora. This system allowed me to place, scale, and blend content fluidly across both fixed and automated scenic units. The final design consisted of seven distinct mapped areas, combining off-center two-channel rear projection with targeted front projection.

Over the course of the production, I created more than forty distinct visual environments and programmed over two hundred media cues. The system supported quick, expressive transitions and allowed the show’s expansive timeline and layered narrative to unfold with visual clarity.

I was successful in engaging with Orlando not just as a mainstage production, but also as a site of active research where new tools, systems, and design processes were tested under the real-world conditions of live performance. In turn, I’m applying these lessons and experiences to further develop the courses I teach at OSU, particularly Fundamentals of Media Design and Devising Experiential Media Systems courses. This work reflects my ongoing commitment to media design as a creative research practice, grounded in dramaturgy, built through collaboration, and continually evolving alongside new technologies.