9 to 5
SUNY Cortland Performing Arts Spring 2018
Dowd main stage Theatre
9 to 5 is a musical based on the movie, staring Dolly Parton.
This is set in an early 80’s office building. The musical explores sexual harassment in the workplace. It uses comedy and music to portray the sexual power a boss can wield over his employees and what their revenge might look like.
This design was inspired by the office cubicle revolution of the early 1980’s. I saw a similarity in Piet Mondrian’s 1920’s grid based paintings. His work echoed the conformist, cubicle world of the early 80’s office building. I changed the color palette of Mondrian to reflect the late 70’s red, orange and gold color schemes.
For this show, Kevin wanted to use projection as a large backdrop instead of our usual lit cyc. This was challenging. Our equipment did not easily lend itself to creating this vision. I was able to creatively hang three projectors at extreme angles and use projection mapping software to align three images blended them into one.
Research: office cubicles late 70's
Mad men TV show set- has the feel of a macho man's office.
Mondrian inspired art
I used 3 projectors to fill the back wall space. You can see some of the overlap.
Research: I used these cubicles as inspiration for the office bullpen
office bullpen rendering
Office bullpen set with projections
Concept sketches
Office concept sketch
Mondrian- inspired the cubicle design and color scheme
Mondrian inspired elevator doors
Hart's Office sketch
Hart's office
Hart's office, we added trophies, antlers and a sliding ladder to add to the chauvinistic Hart's interior design
early 80's Xerox machine
Xerox room. in a dream sequence, Hart is fed to the Xerox machine and it consumes him.
Xerox closeup- custom built Xerox machine
Dream sequence
Hart's home interior. Hart is ted to his bed. We had a custom rig to fly him up to the ceiling after being hog tied.
Transformation. Once the ladies take over we move into an open concept office design with a softer color palette