DAN STUDIO SERIES: VEILED

PRESENTED BY THE DAN STUDIO SERIES
 

The Dan Studio Series, previously known as the Drama Studio Series, is a collection of student written plays presented twice a year. DSS Veiled presented four shows:

Baba | Written by Jeff McGilton, directed by Mike Jankovich + Maureen Barnes

The play is set in a live-broadcasting dance studio in the 80s. The action takes place around four aerobic dancers, Bruce, Bee, Ace and Ailee and follows their dreams of becoming the most popular athletic dance show on television. There is no onstage camera or backstage crew present but it is assumed that when the actors address the audience, they are speaking to the cameras and are on air.

One Flew Into a Box | Written by Rachel Manson, directed by Chris Johnson

A girl and her parents on a Dr. Phil-style talk show. A brand-new intern and a high video editor. A smarmy star of the show and a stressed production manager. And a few supernatural elements. What happens when you put all of that in one room? 

Musing | Written by Rose Ferrao, directed by Sarah Brawn

The Greek Muses have not remained unchanged, but they still do what they have always done best - find and provide inspiration. But when Erato, the muse of romance has her heart broken, how can she provide inspiration to anyone else? In a story of true female friendship and support, the other muses - tragedy, history, and comedy - all take their turn to fill her role, to varying results. 

Gravity and the Golden Thread | Written by Wallis Caldoza, directed by Amanda Lin + Emma Halchuk

A girl reaches adolescence. It sounds simple, but adolescence is never simple, especially when that girl is a woman of colour. 

Challenges lay in trying to create one cohesive design that worked for four very different shows. Baba needed a way to show when the characters were on air and off air, and sometimes needed to split the playing space in order to show both at the same time. One Flew Into a Box was mostly set in a TV studio, but featured four different rooms in the studio... without any set changes. Musing was set in the home of the Greek Muses, so it could not look anything like a TV studio; in fact, it couldn't like any place on earth. Gravity and the Golden Thread, like Musing, was not entirely set in reality, and like One Flew Into a Box, featured several different places without any physical set changes. As the lighting designer, I worked closely with the set designer, Marie Lynn, to create a design that worked with the set to create the different scene changes out of light instead of set pieces. I also worked closely with the directors to create individual special effects to help make sure that each design shone on its own and was not hampered by the fact that one plot was being used to design four shows. 

The second challenge was the playing space itself; the stage was a pie shaped and set in a corner. The lighting design was important for creating depth in a space that shaped and bent light in ways that were not easy to predict, but beautiful to behold.