Make Me A Song

Designed for end on staging in the Richard Burton Theatre

By William Finn
Director: Benjamin Till

Musical Director: Niall Casserly

Choreography: Justin Sparkes
Set Design: Theo Wyatt
Costume Design: Rose Thomas & Emily Cantwell
Lighting Design: Justin Wu

Costume Assistant: Evan Stead

Photography: Jorge Lizalde

Set in the late 1970's/early 1980's in New York, my co-designer and I created a specific colour palette that was evocative of the period, and collaborated with the set designer on colour choices to achieve a cohesive design concept.

The seasons in the year and the Jewish holidays that correspond with them became a focal point in the design, with costumes and colour palettes reflecting those seasonal changes.

Summer/Passover

Autumn/Yom Kippur

Spring/Purim

Winter/Hanukkah

1/11

Reference images

Process

The design team used a Miro board to communicate and share ideas- this was key to refining the colour palette, collating research on the Jewish festivals and the fashions of the period.

Artwork by Emily Cantwell

We created costume plots and a breakdown of what the actions, characters and seasons were in each song, highlighting where any quick or complex changes would be.

My co-designer and I had a session of listening to the songs together and doing quick response sketches, which we then compared and discussed. Many of the ideas generated through this process went into the final design.

Artwork by Rose Thomas

Styling on the stand with sourced items was a useful tool for both of us to collaborate on early in the process, to get our ideas in sync and experiment with layering and colours.

While sourcing the costumes, we created visual documents to keep track of our hires and a digital wardrobe of the styling that took place during fittings.