educational theatre
Making theater teaches us that we can recreate ourselves and our world.
The teaching artist must demonstrate how to do that with confidence, curiosity, and compassion.
All scenic designs by Joseph Lark-Riley. Fabrication and installation by student crews under the guidance of Lark-Riley.Hamlet
Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School
I directed and designed this high school production, leaning into the aspects of the source material that resonate most with teenagers today. The text was cut to focus on the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia, and tensions between the two generations. A young woman was cast in the role of Hamlet, and we decided to make the character a young woman too.
We showed moments of the story that typically occur offstage - King Hamlet’s funeral, the marriage of Claudius and Gertrude, and Ophelia’s death. These and other moments of the production were underscored with contemporary music - an assortment of emo, electronic, punk, and pop songs.
A minimal set evolved through the performance - a set of arches adorned with garlands was introduced for the wedding and a mound covered with the Danish flag for the funeral. After Hamlet accidentally killed Polonius, she removed the flag to wrap him, revealing the mound to be a large skull. During her decent into madness, Ophelia removed the garlands from the arches, revealing them to be large ribs. The majority of the second half of the performance took place in this skeleton stage. At the height of her despair, Ophelia dances about (to a 100 gecs track), collecting the flowers that had been scattered for the wedding and ultimately scaling the face of the skull before falling from that apex to her death.
Big Fish
Summer Fine Arts Theatre Workshop, Brevard Public Schools
To tell this story of a man struggling to reconcile with his father’s life - only ever recounted as a series of unbelievable tall tales - and impending death, I designed the set as a folk-art rendering of a giant oak tree. The tree provided multiple playing areas in its nooks and branches, and was bestrewn with artifacts and imagery representing significant chapters from the father’s life. At the moment of the father’s death, the tree is revealed as a verdant tapestry, providing inspiration, shelter, and joy for generations to come.
The construction of this set was a major undertaking. A crew of 12 high-school students spent 10 days building up layers of chicken wire, papier mache, and paint. They were exhausted but were rewarded by seeing the emotional impact their work had on audiences.
Fiddler on the Roof
Summer Fine Arts Theatre Workshop, Brevard Public Schools
This set was inspired by the work of Marc Chagall, an artist whose life and art reflected the lives of the characters in this story, and who expressed joy, wonder, and a celebration of that life in his paintings.
The set was kept a stark white and black palette so that lighting could paint it with changing colors throughout the performance and so we could drain all of that color when the characters evacuate the stage and the lives they’ve known for the final time at the end.