My first Assistant Directing project was David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette, a dream-like journey through the entirety of the French Queen’s life from her youth to her execution. Our mission with this project was to reconcile the grandeur of the 18th century past with the modern sensibilities of the script and what fame and power have come to mean in a 21st century context. Antoinette’s interest in fashion and aesthetic drove a lot of the costume and set design.

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The script covers a lot of narrative ground, so the heft of our directorial efforts were in conveying the growth of each character over the years-long span of the play. We sought to create characters, a set, and a world that was full to bursting with vibrancy, color, excitement, and anxiety. The majority of the sound track was contemporary French hip-hop, which helped convey the sense of then-and-now without being too distracting, as English-language pop music might have been. The final product was one of sleek design and spectacle, a marriage of fashion show indulgence and revolutionary yearnings that combined into a unified final whole.

 

Production Team:

Director: Robert Richmond

Asst. Director: Grace Ann Roberts, Ryan Stevens

Set Designer: Kimi Maeda

Costume Designer: Jean Lomasto

Lighting Designer: Marc Hurst

Production Stage Manager: Jillian Peltzmann

Sound Designer:  Matt Pound