Strange Birds

STRANGE BIRDS is a LauchPad preview production set in a remote cabin in the Wallowa Mountains and circles around a family of 3 sisters and 2 park rangers. These five women reckon with dark forces in this fierce and funny feminist thriller. As everything comes to a boiling point, secrets are revealed and morals are put into question. This play is about women, sisterhood, wolves, and secrets. The Scenic Designer Ann Sheffield brings the audience into a world of realism and the abstract, bringing them into the main character’s (Lou) cabin. This is Lou’s safe space, studio, and home. As one of the assistant scenic designers, my jobs included helping with model building, set building, scenic dressing, and pulling together props. I was also the Speciality Props Artisan for this play and was in charge of making a life-size fake dead body and making fake “rabbit” stew.

Assistant Scenic Designer & Speciality Props Artisan for

Model Making

The Final Model (Process)

During this process, I was mostly in charge of gluing together the frames of Cabin Walls and starting to glue on the wooden panels on the walls, along with building most of the furniture pieces. I built the kitchen counter & sink, along with the coat rack, mug rack, the woodstove burner, and the sofa.

One of my first jobs as an assistant scenic designer was to help build this rough model so that the director could see the initial design before moving on to the final model. I did a lot of the cutting for some of the panels, and the cutting for the cabin panels

The Final Model (Process)

When putting all of the pieces together, I hung up the rafters to the grid . As well as helped assemble the booms seen in the model.

The Set

Frank’s Dead Body

For this play the characters of the Wolf and Frank were played by the same actor because of this a fake dead body was needed so that the actor could quickly change into the Wolf. This fake dead body needed to follow the same measurements as the actor, so by using the measurements taken by the costume shop, I was able to create a skeleton made out of rope and scrap wood then used foam to create the “flesh”. This was made to be dragged on the floor so the arms and legs needed the flexibility to act like actual limbs. When the foam phase was done, I then put the same costume Frank wears onto the body. I also helped the costume shop with distressing both the dead body’s and Franks's pants, shirts, and henley because they needed to be identical to each other. Once the clothes were put on I attached the hands, shoes, and head. During tech, I was able to gather some notes from the director and others on how the prop can be improved then modified it to look even more realistic.