UW Whitewater Theatre/Dance Department

The minute “She Kills Monsters” closed, we were on to the design process for the Spring opera. Due to COVID scheduling issues, the selection of our opera offerings didn’t get finalized until well into the Fall semester; much had to do with being sure that the pieces fit within singer and musician safety guidelines; we were looking for small cast, small orchestra pieces. We ended up choosing two twentieth century one-act operas: Thomas Pasatieri’s “Signor Delusa,” and Mark Blitzstein’s “The Harpies.” An added hurdle was that the design work had to begin before we were able to obtain the full scores and librettos. So.

Director Bruce Cohen wanted some visual approach that tied the two rather different pieces together as a unified evening of comic opera. We chose to head toward a Chuck Jones era Looney Tunes visual agenda, making the pieces both cartoony and presentational. The orchestra has been moved into the stage in full view of the audience. Here are two photos of the very rough preliminary model, showing the set up for “The Harpies:”

and for “Signor Delusa:”

The catch at this point is that our TD and TD students need to review the design elements and figure out if we have the time, budget, and resources to build this idea — before I’ve finished drafting the whole of the set design to give them the details they need to make their decisions.

Onward. . .