The Objectives:
Director Colton Wolf’s vision for Three Sisters drew heavy inspiration from the Cubist movement that Stein herself was inspired by when writing the piece, which my team and I sought to reflect through extreme geometric patterns inspired by visual art from that movement. Color was used a reflection of each character, and the very explicit conflict between the brothers and the sisters, with red largely being associated with Jenny specifically and mixed with various blues and purples in representation of the other characters. We sought to create shifting and surreal environments amongst the geometry creating a sort of “dream state” for the audience, where while it was clear when we moved from location to location they could never quite grasp a specific place.
Hidden Motives: An Evening of One Acts was a presentation of both Trifles by Susan Glaspell and Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters by Gertrude Stein, pairing to very different takes on the “murder mystery” united in themes about gender, violence, and oppression. Directors Colton Wolf and Jamie Ellen Ripperger also chose to unite the two pieces through a devised transition, moving from the eerie realism of Trifles into the surrealist and cubist world of Three Sisters. I worked as part of the scenic design collective, with my focus being primarily on projection and video effects for Wolf’s take on Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters as well as the transition between the two pieces. Hidden Motives played in March of 2025 in Studio 88 at Miami University’s Center for the Performing Arts.
The Processes:
To create the cubic field of projections on the rear sculpture, I made use of TouchDesigner, creating a repeatedly generating sequence of orthographic geometry giving the eerie and uncanny cubist feeling the director required. Throughout the piece, I would trigger various effects to create different variations on the base geometry for different moments and modes, with certain geometric still for key and shocking moments. For the transition, I created a reactive version of this visual synchronized with the soundscape being used to move from one piece to the second and thus mirroring the devised movement playing out on stage with the sound. The pattern of the geometry was created through multiple rounds of design and brainstorming with both the director
