The Design Team

With the script under control, now Lauren needed to recruit a team to make the show come to life.

Lauren met with costumer Mary Swerens to describe her ideas for how to easily morph the human characters into the dream animals. It became more and more obvious that the “dream” aspect of the story was a key to keeping things consistent, but also allowing some freedom to adapt events and story to serve the bigger picture of the play’s theme.

Michael Wilhelm, a multi-talented artist who has acted and written for afO for many years, was called upon to provide original artwork. We asked him to create the show’s video backdrop, in the style of Ernest Shepherd’s illustrations. He also drew the honey tree, which videographer Brock Eastom animated for us. Having Brock create both the projections and the lighting design saved many headaches as he could control how the images would look in various lights and moods.

Torilinn Cwanek, a talented emerging composer, was the obvious choice to create the various incidental bridges needed. Tori and Lauren had worked on the music for several previous shows already, and Lauren was eager for Tori to have an opportunity to write music with a different “flavor” than her previous work. The whimsical and pastoral themes she has created are just right. Tori and Jadon worked closely to create singable melodies for Pooh’s several songs.

The set pieces themselves have gone through several design iterations. Originally we thought we’d try to achieve something very realistic with each piece. Later it seemed more appropriate and in keeping with the dream-nature of the story, to make the pieces look more like flat illustrations. Our wonderful set builder, Tod Mohr, was able to create the three freestanding units with all the specifics we needed for our actors to use them easily and safely.