Old Work: Set Design for Houston's Grand Opera - Opera to Go!

So in the pursuit of trying to be one of those regular blogger types I have decided to go away-s back and then work forward chronologically with old work so that I can catch up on the all the fantastic projects I have worked on in the last year.

Backdrop Image for "The Clever Wife"

When I was contacted by the producers of a traveling children's opera out of Houston I was a tad intimidated by the idea of doing set design, but when I found out they were flat images mounted on portable rectangle boxes well then I couldn't say no. The following images are the sets I created for an opera set in a Chinese town - specifically in a noodle house and Emporer's quarters.

The noodle house - a courtyard shot

 The Emperor's bedroom interior backdrop

This last one was a particular challenge because they needed a solution that could be turned upside down to become a different set. So I made this backdrop "set-ambidextrous" if you will. Viewable right side up and upside down. Here they are side by side with the different views:

Still not sure if it was believable enough... those lanterns don't make great floor lamps :)

Anyways this was a really fun project to work on and Kade from HCO was a great client. When he emailed me this morning asking for me to work on their next one I remembered I had never posted about it and how fun it was. Kinda out of my norm but I still snuck in some definite Ashley-isms to the design. Swirly clouds anyone? He also sent me some production photos and it was fun to see it in action. I just wish I could have seen the background all blown up. That ended up being my favorite piece.

It's odd seeing your stuff a year later and noticing all the things you would do different the next go around. Ah well, live and learn.