The Birds
The Garden Theatre Winter Garden, FL
Lighting design for the 2018 production of The Birds at The Garden Theatre, directed by Aradhana Tiwari.
About the Lighting Design
The Birds was a shadow show. A spooky, scary play where the design’s first instinct had to be darkness, not light, and the lighting had to learn when to reveal and when to let things stay obscured.
Most of the front light came from two shin fixtures, positioned and angled to feel like candles. The set had practical candles on it, but candles alone don’t put enough light on faces. The shins reinforced the idea of candlelight without breaking the source illusion. The audience read the candles as the source. The lighting just made sure they could read the faces under the candles too.
The most viral design choice was knowing when NOT to see people. The director was not afraid of obscurity, and the production leaned into not-seeing as a tool. That kind of restraint only works when all collaborators trust the script and trust each other: when you know which moments need a face, which moments need a silhouette, and which moments need a body in a room with the lights almost out.
- Adapted by
- Conor McPherson
- From the story by
- Daphne du Maurier
- Director
- Aradhana Tiwari
- Scenic Designer
- Vandy Wood
- Costume Designer
- Franne Lee
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Sound Designer
- Aradhana Tiwari
- Production Electrician
- David Clenney
About the Show
Conor McPherson's 2009 stage adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's short story. Strangers Nat and Diane take refuge in an isolated house on the coast as massive flocks of birds begin attacking everything in their path. When a young woman with secrets of her own arrives at the door, the fragile sanctuary they've built starts to fracture, and paranoia takes hold alongside the threat outside. A taut four-character thriller about how people behave when the rules of the world stop holding.
Source: Nick Hern Books
Cast
Matthew Rush as NatTara Anderson as DianeSarah Lockard as JuliaBob Brandenburg as Tierney
Production Photos
Press
Mike Wood's lighting is plenty eerie, and scenic designers Vandy Wood's two-story house with its forbidding staircase and slatted blinds works perfectly.