Sound and Lighting

The lighting will vary from scene to scene. The main points of the lighting will be the boiler room scene, in which there will need to be backlights in reds and oranges underneath the balcony to represent the furnaces in which the men are shoveling coal into. There will also need to be bright white light placed in certain areas, so that when Yank sees Mildred, they can shine through and around her giving her the ethereal appearance. Another key lighting moment in the play is the jail scene, where the lighting grid will have to be set up to show the jail cells through the lighting, to help elevate obstruction from using set pieces. The final key scene with lighting is the scene in the jail, where only spot lights to look like street lights in small pools will be on the stage, with the gorilla only slightly lit, with a spotlight that will rise as the other lights go down on Yank and the gorilla at the very end. 

Key moments in sound for the play will be the scene on the deck, with the sound of wind and the sea, played from only one location of the theatre, so it travels to give the feel that they are actually as sea. Another key moment will be the boiler scene, where they will have to be the scrape of metal and coal, the banging and clanging, the chugging of the ship, the men chanting, etc. Another key moment will be the zoo. It would be nice to be able to get an almost echo effect, to sound as if he’s actually in the monkey house of a zoo as well as the banging and clanging and the screeching of the other monkeys in the zoo.