ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE
CITY THEATRE World Premiere Playwright L M Feldman Director Kim Weild Director of Artistic Sign Language MoMo Holt Scenic Design Chelsea M. Warren Media Design Kolton Cotton Lighting Design Annie Wiegand & Cat Wilson Sound Design & Original Music Stewart Blackwood Costume Design Damien E. Dominguez Intimacy Coordinator Tomé Cousin Dramaturg Clare Drobot Production Photography KJH Studios
critical response below
American Theatre, Emma Diehl: “Feldman’s play has begun its National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre (through Oct. 12), with direction by Kim Weild, with additional productions slated for Denver’s Curious Theatre Company next March and The VORTEX in Austin next May.”
Pittsburgh Tatler, Wendy Arons: “And the world of the play itself – which sits somewhere between mundane reality and a dreamscape in which people are shadowed (and are mirrored) by manifestations of their “personal chorus” – is served beautifully by Chelsea Warren’s Hellenic-inspired rotunda-like space and Annie Wiegand’s moody lighting design…The production – directed by Kim Weild with sensitivity and nuance – is bilingual, and all of the dialogue is made accessible to audience members – whether they can hear or not, and whether they can read sign language or not – via the Chorus as well as via projections of the text. This makes for a rich and layered theatrical experience, with multiple modes of visual and aural input filling out the world of the play. Director of Artistic Sign Language Momo Holt combines ASL and Visual-Gestural Communication to build an expressive and kinesthetic performance of dialogue and storytelling among the ensemble. Kolton Cotton’s media design includes not only the projections of the text, but also abstracted representations of music, rhythm, and other effects from Stewart Blackwood’s complex and atmospheric sound design and original music. Costume designer Damien E. Dominguez uses color to link each of the Choruses to their respective character – the Choruses wear jewel-toned tunics of burgundy, green, orange, and purple that correspond to a dominant shade in their character’s modern dress wardrobe.”
Burgh Vivant, Dr.Tiffany Knight Raymond, PhD: “Chelsea M. Warren’s classical Greek scenic design elegantly blends amphitheater with ruins, providing a sun-bleached background for each scene. Fabric-like pillars provide elegant spaces for the subtitles. Topping these pillars is a connecting arch. One of the play’s most memorable and magnificent moments is courtesy of Cotton. For a scene at the Odeon in Athens, Cotton projects a musical staff onto the arch. When symphony music commences, the lines of the staff vibrate. They become sound waves that vibrate with the music, providing a visual representation of the music’s crescendos and decrescendos…nothing is missing from this production. Don’t miss the transformative.”
On Stage Pittsburgh, Sharonn Eberson: “As in all modes of entertainment with captioning – whether it’s movie subtitles or opera surtitles – there can be distracted focus from the performance, which includes what is known as Visual-Gestural Communication. communication method. The spread scenic design by Chelsea Warren, with lighting by Annie Wiegand, mostly avoids that potential pitfall, with the projection of large-font captioning on centrally placed screens, integral to the design that is a cross between an amphitheater ruin and upscale hotel lobby.”