The Children was produced as part of the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival(NYMF) at the Barrow Group Theatre
in Midtown Manhattan.
The play riffs off the 1980 horror/zombie film of the same name. A spoof of both the genre and the content, latchkey kids left unattended by their self-obsessed parents
fall victim to a nuclear accident that transforms them from young loving children into horrific zombies.
The tone of the piece was rather difficult to capture in the design and took a lot of work to negotiate the right style for
the piece. The book is largely lifted from the film dialog and reads rather blank. Very dry spoken humor set against some
quite humorous visual set ups.
The "children" were all played by adult actors who doubled as adults in the town. Every actor was double cast and this created
its own level of humor. At times one parents pre-teen child would stand towering over them by more than one or two feet.
Further, the town busybody, Molly, was played by a man in drag. Her secret passion for Sheriff Hart led to some hilarious
moments in her big number "Heart to Hart."
While the dialog was very dry, the songs took on a whole different quality. All the subtext, the things left unsaid in the
dialog came out full force in song. The music would crescendo in a height of gut bursting absurdity, yet the transition was
not sudden. Rather the music would build out of the scenes and carry the viewer along. Swept away, it was only at the often
abrupt return to reality that we saw the ridiculous situations on stage and being sung.
Similarly, the lighting had to not only light these two very different aspects of the storytelling, but the transitions had
to flow on to the next in as seamless a fashion as the dramatic and comic pacing of the scenes and songs.
Not only did the book and music provide these challenges, but the scenery provided a similar challenge. With little more
than a painted groundrow and a few elements, table, chairs, and a rolling door to indicate change of scene, a lot of that
duty fell upon the lighting. With numerous locations and split scenes and of course the psychological world of song, it became
quite a challenge to keep all these various elements clearly defined.
Color was a very useful tool in terms of the visual storytelling, but it along was insufficient for the myriad demands the
play made on the lighting. Dynamic and radical changes of the visual field were necessary, the light had to be hard and soft,
warm and cool, present and invisible. In fact, every quality the light can take on was asked for in this production. Quite
an exciting challenge to say the least.
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