Raisin in the Sun | Francesca DeCicco

A Raisin in the Sun

Technical Director

Yale Repertory Theatre

Directed by Carl Cofield | Lily Guerin (Scenic Design)

Kathy A. Perkins (Lighting Design) | Yunzhu Zeng(Costume Design)

PRODUCTION POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19

This production of A Raisin in the Sun was an incredible collaborative experience between the entire artistic and production teams. Early in the process, the Set Designer, Lily Guerin, indicated she wanted the world of the play to feel cramped, aged, invasive, and realistic. These points were echoed by the Director, Carl Cofield, and other designers during the design presentations. The scenic elements utilized to support these ideas were the upstage brick walls towering over the Younger’s apartment, practical use of all the kitchen appliances and sink, and a scrim wall to see into other parts of the apartment.

CHAMELEON SCRIM v. SHARK TOOTH SCRIM SAMPLE TESTING. Early in the budgeting phase the TD team had concerns about stretching shark tooth scrim without distorting the printed geometric wallpaper pattern. As we researched other soft goods that could be printed on and have the same visual effect as shark tooth scrim we came across Chameleon scrim. The above pictures show the TD team and Electrics Supervisor, Eric Walker, testing the samples of both scrim types. These pictures and others like it were shared with the director, other designers, and stage management to show our findings and the decision was made to use the Chameleon Scrim.

BUDGET TRACKING. This custom spreadsheet was used to track our materials and labor hours and allowed me to see in real-time where we were at with our budget. As units were changing during build, this document was helpful in determining if we had the available resources to support those modifications.

LINESET SCHEDULE. To create this lineset schedule, I facilitated conversations with the production departments to establish everyone's airspace needs. These discussions were important in developing hang and rigging plans because we had to prohibit the use of a number of linesets once the brick walls and downstage portal were installed.

PROCESS PICTURES. Install of the two 30ft. tall upstage brick walls. The top pictures give a view of the corner brick wall as it is being assembled and the upstage framing of the final product. The bottom pictures show the assembly of the flat brick wall with the painted mural on the downstage side.

LOAD-IN PLAN &DAILY PUNCH LIST EXAMPLES. Being a student while technical directing a production means that there are times when you can't be present for portions of the build and load-in. As a way to give the crew direction during these times at our load-in, a daily punch list with the goals for that day was made. An example of one of these daily punch lists can be seen above left. Another tool we used to disseminate tasks to our crew was an overall load-in plan document. Two pages from this documentation can be seen on the right. Each ATD created a step-by-step plan for their units and the tools needed for each task. I then took those plans and combined them into one document in the order each unit would be installed and assigned tasks to the crew.

BUILD CALENDAR EXAMPLE. This is a portion of our build calendar, which was used to communicate the expected build time and trucking schedule for each unit. I revised this document frequently as build progressed to update schedule changes. This document was continuously shared with the scene shop staff and the other production departments as adjustments were made.