race-inspired crimes that have occurred in our country. This is an African American story that speaks to me as an African American man, especially in this day and age—when we see so-called “good people” acting in questionable ways.


My job as lighting designer is often to bring together the set and the costumes in terms of how they are lit and the colors I choose. Once I speak to the director and I receive samples of the costume fabrics and renderings of the set, I find a complementary color palette. With A Soldier’s Play, I also have to decide how to use the lighting to delineate scenes that are taking place in the past as opposed to those taking place in the present. I will be using backlight and color to highlight the scenes in the past. I also will be using a technique called selective visibility, so the audience isn’t aware of who is using the gun in the opening scene. The entire action of the play takes place at Fort Neal in Louisiana in 1944, and that location requires specific color choices as well. Kenny Leon, the director, has asked that the heat and humidity of that area be reflected in the lighting, and it is my job to make that happen.


Costume design sketches by Dede Ayite for A Soldier's Play


stage is always a crucial point to get the most accurate sense of the period. The next step for me was to then identify their individual journeys through the play, noting what makes them different from each other. How their personalities, backgrounds, and sense of self might affect the way a character is presented.


Yet another helpful part of the process was to sit with the rest of the design team and the director, Kenny Leon, to discuss how we want to manifest this story. Collaboration is key here—in order to create a world that feels seamless. Hearing various viewpoints and approaches surely enriches the process and final product. The next step for me after gathering enough information will be fittings with the actors playing the various roles. This is vital, as the uniform pieces and costumes don’t become real until there is a human being wearing them. Here the pieces start to take form. Ultimately, the individual pieces begin to tell a story that adds depth and specificity to the character wearing them.


ALLAN LEE HUGHES—LIGHTING DESIGN I designed the lighting for the original production of A Soldier’s Play directed by Douglas Turner Ward at The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) in November of 1981. The first time I designed lighting for this play, I thought of it as a “whodunit”—and it still is a “whodunit” because the opening scene is a murder, which is the first thing the audience sees happening on stage. But this time around the play has different resonance, I believe, because of Sergeant Waters’s disturbed state of mind and recent


DAN MOSES SCHREIER—SOUND DESIGN This powerhouse of a play has personal resonance for me as someone who grew up in Detroit, Michigan in an integrated neighborhood and who went to integrated schools. The play deals with racial politics of the segregated United States Army during World War II and very skillfully delineates attitudes towards race in the entire country at the same time. The first thing I have to do is read the play over numerous times and jot down my thoughts, and then I meet with the director. My initial meetings with director Kenny Leon have been about how to best evoke the time period and themes of the play in terms of the music choices we make. The original script calls for the play opening with the Andrews Sisters recording of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” but Kenny and I have been looking into using a recording by Son House, who was an American delta blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing in the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. In fact, his work was rediscovered by the late Alan Lomax, who spent almost 70 years as a folklorist and ethnographer, collecting, archiving, and analyzing folksongs and music in America. In addition to music, this play literally starts with a bang because the first thing after music—sound-wise—is a gunshot, but so far we haven’t decided whether those shots will be live ammo or recorded. As sound designer, I am not only responsible for music and all the necessary ambient sound, I am also in charge of how best to hear the actors in a space that has tricky acoustics. So, I will be making decisions about the best way to mic actors subtly, so that everyone in the audience can hear them.•


A SOLDIER'S PLAY UPSTAGE GUIDE


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