SEMELE

The Wolf Trap Opera Company

Directed by Tara Faircloth

Scenic Design:

Cameron Anderson

Lighting Design:

Mark Stanley

Wig & Makeup Design:

Anne Nesmith

Costume Design:

Rooth Varland

Summer 2023, Technical Director

Lead Carpenter:

Anson Stevie

Semele is an English opera about pure opulence, greed, selfishness, and how all of these can lead to ones demise. This show was a whirlwind and served as my introduction to both professional opera, as well as being a professional Technical Director. Being in a historic barn space, I also had to work with a pitched roof space which proved an interesting rigging challenge. I learned a lot of new things during my time on Semele, and overall am very proud of the product.

The largest and most important set piece for the production was a set of curved walls with large columns. These tracked from their onstage position for the chapel scene, 12’ diagonally to their offstage position. These were constructed in a traditional Hollywood style, with plywood ribs to help establish the curve. The curve of the wall was closer to oblong than true circular and this presented an interesting challenge in many ways. To cut these out I opted to print out 1:1 templates of each of the unique rib pieces, this also included a bolt hole pattern to help mount the fixed casters the unit traveled on. One wall also included a ships ladder leading up to a hatch door to be utilized in the finale scene. To track the walls, two knifes made of plate steel and pieces of UHMW were bolted to each wall and inserted into a track we cut into the 1/2” MDF show floor.

Below are some images from my AutoCAD model, as well as some process pictures.

The second largest and most important set piece was the rose wall and matching “Pleasure Palace platform”. This towering structure had to be easily removable, as compact as possible, and the definition of opulence. The design of this unit had many iterations based on our limitations, and various safety concerns. We landed on this large box with collapsible wings to help the unit hide in certain scenes. The front side was completely covered in giant artificial roses ranging in diameter from 12” all the way up to 24”. The back of the unit was stretched with a printed RP fabric of a burnt rose pattern, thus the unit had to remain as open as possible to allow LED cyc lights to live inside. The platform itself tracked up and downstage with a knife, and attached to the wall with loose pin hinges.

Below are some images from my AutoCAD model, as well as some process pictures.