Approach
As both Lighting and Media Designer, I helped shape this production of The Glass Menagerie as a world fractured by memory. The scenic design forwent a traditional box set, instead creating a fragmented environment of suspended projection shards that mirrored the instability of recollection. Memories are rarely concrete, and the design leaned into suggestion, layering light and projection to capture the heightened emotions of Williams’s “memory play.”
 

During Tom’s opening monologue, claustrophobic projections of fire escapes framed the apartment, externalizing his sense of entrapment. Throughout the show, projections communicated camera angles and intimate perspectives that the audience might not otherwise see, allowing closeness within the vastness of the theatre. Often the imagery was embedded beneath wallpaper textures, reminding us that memories linger even when not at the forefront.
 

Much of the media was built from custom photography and video, crafted to highlight specific textures and details: embroidery, florals, jonquils, and subtle overlays. These choices gave memory a tactile presence, deepening the intimacy of the world. At times, light and projection blurred reality — the stars were created from a tuberculosis map of the period, the Paradise Dance Hall glowed through colored bokeh, and Laura’s memories shimmered in faint blue roses. The shifting interplay of light, shadow, and media carried the audience through a fragile, dreamlike landscape of longing, fragility, and loss.
 

System: All front projection on three suspended projection panels (“shards”). Media content created through custom photography and video, with mapping, cuing, and playback integrated through QLab 5.