Braden Graves
What excited you most about taking on the scenic design for Men on Boats?
I have always been really interested in stories of exploration and adventure. I grew up hiking and climbing in the Western U.S., so I also had a strong personal connection to the story. When I found out I was going to design a comedy about the last great exploration of our country, I got really excited. I also really enjoy working with Beth Kattelman, so I was thrilled to do my thesis designs under her direction. Were there any particular challenges recreating this world on stage? One of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out how to fit a representation of the Grand Canyon, which is famous because of its size and vastness, into a small thrust theatre. It took me quite some time to figure out how to stylize the canyon in a way that made it believable and feel like it had an impressive scale while only being sixteen feet tall. What styles and influences inspired your choices? There are a lot of really great prints of the more famous moments of the expedition, so I drew a lot of inspiration for the props and stylization throughout the show. The most important pieces I drew from were landscape paintings of the canyon by Charles Pabst. The composition of his paintings as well as the techniques used to create depth were huge resources for this design. The boats are really cool. How did you come up with the concept? When designing the boats, I tried to think like a child trying to put together something to play with. I tried to break down the structure of the boats to make them lightweight and functional while still being very recognizable. Toward the end of the process, I had the idea of adding suspender straps so that actors could wear them and have their hands free to paddle and do other acting business. How did historical research feature into your work? Historical research played a big role in my design. A family member happened to already own a copy of Powell’s original journal, so I was able to read quite a bit of that and learn a lot about the specifics of the mission. The equipment especially was important to have a sense of what they would have used, even though I created very stylized versions for the actual production. The journal also contained some great descriptions of the scale and colors of the canyon by different crewmembers from the original mission. What is your favorite part of the show/set/props. Etc? One of my favorite elements of the scenic design is having a raked stage with a very organic edge to it. This combination isn’t seen very often because it is so difficult to construct, but the two elements of movement working together create a really striking effect. I also really like how the canyon layers and the lighting were able to work together. I was very intentional with how I painted light and shadow into the layers so that it would work with the direction of the light fixtures that were used to illuminate them. This ended up working together really nicely and created a unified look throughout that area of the set. I really love the concept of having all the props be two-dimensional wooden versions. I think this was much more successful than trying to find accurate real versions of everything used. Creating a unified look that all fits together is always the most important thing for any design and I think quite a few elements of this show did that really nicely. |
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