FÊTE OF MISTAKES: lighting design, projections engineering, performer
"In The Fête of Mistakes, Psychic Readings Co constructs an abstract fairground littered with the overwhelmingness of despair and the sustained tension of hopefulness."
This production, produced by Psychic Readings Theater, given at Baltimore's Le Mondo in December 2016, presented a number of interesting challenges and opportunities. The performance space, having no existing lighting system, grid or other infrastructure, was adapted into an intimate, even claustrophobic theater that opened out into the wider space of Le Mondo for a spectacular finale demolition derby. Lighting instruments, ranging from LED flashlights to clip lights to standard theatrical fixtures, were used to create a shadowy, subterranean space situated (or not) beneath Niagara Falls.
Projections were carefully prepared to create a seamless, hypnotic moving mandala and other apparitions which helped propel the plot of this all-American demimonde.
In addition, I appeared (as David J. Crandall) with a prophetic song in the penultimate climax of the evening:
“But you must hurry! Don’t you dare be late!
The engine of fate has no governor! Get what’s coming to you! Go! Go!”
Photos by Dave Iden