Prosim (Czech for both "please" and "you're welcome")

Much of the day was spent completing the exhibit install, so I wasn't able to travel too far afoot (however the blisters forming on my toes tell a slightly more active story, as does my pedometer which logged more than 11 miles today).

To that end, I'll start with the "work" today, and then move to talking about Prague.
As I mentioned in the last post, USITT supports the American exhibits that come to Prague Quadrennial (PQ). And this year two exhibits were sent, the National and the Student. A little over 2 years ago we formed a team, made up of two co-directors (myself and Meghan Raham, a costume/scenic professor at American University in DC), and a group of four students/early career professionals. They are Joe Klug (a now-graduating MFA scenic designer from UIUC), John Mitchell (a now-graduating BFA  in Lighting Design from Dixie State University, UT), Jenna Moran (an early career freelance sound designer based in Chicago, a BFA graduate of DePaul Univ. Theatre School), and Tyler Kinney (early career freelance costume designer/technician in theatre/film from Boston, a BFA graduate from Emerson College).

John, Joe, Tyler, myself, Meghan, and Jenna

partway through the install, the afternoon I arrived in Prague, 

coincidentally, this was the first time we we ALL in the same

geographical place at the same time!

Over the 2 plus years of this project we worked mainly via google hang-out, email, and the occasional FB post, or messaging conversation. We did meet in person twice before now -- the first time at the USITT Conference in Ft Worth Texas a year and a half ago (without Joe, who was in tech for a show in Chicago), and then back in January of this year at IU Bloomington...yep, Indiana (without Jenna as SHE was in tech for a show in Chicago, do you sense a theme here?).

At the Ft Worth conference, we talked about the concept and the physical design of the exhibit, as well as what we hoped to get from submissions, and how we might get folk excited about the exhibit and submitting. Using an excel spreadsheet template that we created for the 2011 student exhibit (for which I served as mentor), we reached out to every theatre program in the US that we could find with classes or an advisor in stage design and talked about our hopes and how students from all over could get involved. We retooled the 2011 student exhibit facebook page and tried to drive interest there as well. 

One of the larger challenges was that we needed to have the physical outlay of the exhibit designed well in advance of us knowing what the pieces were that we were going to display... now take a second and think about that... imagine, with only a theoretical underpinning, knowing that you needed to design a space that was both specific to the themes you wanted, (specific enough that the physical exhibit itself could be built) while also keeping things open-ended enough to allow for the  flexibility of what exciting work might come our way. We put out the initial call for submissions early in 2014, with a fall deadline. Simultaneously, we had to have our completed and finalized exhibit design ready to hand over to Indiana University Theatre Department (who has been in charge of building/shipping/installing/and teching both US exhibits). 

As the 14-15 school year started, we blasted out into the world the fact that we sere still seeking submissions and that they were due in early fall. around the end of October, the team separately went thru all of the online submissions, and we all made our own lists of what we felt were exciting pieces of design, while also keeping our TRANSCEND ideals in mind. Interestingly as we started to discuss, there were several projects (probably 4 or 5 of the 9 ultimately selected), that we EACH had on our "tops" list. we discussed why we each felt these were each of our top choices. and then we worked down the list of ALL remaining submissions, both the ones that some of the team liked, as well as those that none of us initially selected. We talked about how each DID fit our stated goals, and why we should or should include them in the next round of consideration. I have to admit, even though I had gone through the process before, this step was really difficult. Over the course of a couple weeks, we whittled down remaining options until we feel that we had adequately filled our already-existing exhibit design, while being able to adequately address each project's needs within the exhibit. As we sent out acceptance letters to the selected designs, we opened up dialogue with each designer about the exhibit and it's scope, and how we thought we might work together with each designer to arrived at a mutually beneficial M.O. to highlight their work, while still giving a coherence to the overall exhibit.

Some interesting facts about submissions/selections.... ultimately we had over 40 submissions, from more than 30 students at every level academically (BA, BFA, MFA, even a couple MA students), geographically submitters were scattered about the country. some had completed their programs, others were still in the trenches. -- It was a requirement that the work submitted had to have been done DURING THE TIME a designers was a student, you'll note that there are a couple who's projects were at professional companies, but all designs had to be created while applicants were a student.-- While there is an interesting smattering of undergrad/grad going on, and there are males and females represented, every single one of the successful submissions were submitted by a female design student. There are a couple "more complete" projects, but there are also submissions where only one designer was interested in having their work on display. There are realized as well as unrealized projects, and I was particularly interested in the fact that we had several that were more performance-art and dance-based pieces.

It wasn't until the Indiana fit-up in January that we started putting pieces into individual lockers and seeing how these projects communicated with each other, to forma  single narrative about the state of Student Design in the US. I am really proud of the team, and thrilled to help put these students' work on display in the largest such venue in the world-wide industry.

putting the top into place!

the PQ rules state that we have to include the name of our country, 

in both our native language, as well as Czech.

looking into our exhibit from the room next door, 

which the exhibit from Lebanon!

Each student has a locker, or space of their own....

here you see a couple of the open lockers with design work in them, 

as well as Jenna trying to get our projections to work

here's the locker for Elizabeth Smith, whose selected design for the musical, 

NEXT TO NORMAL, inspired this installation based on her design

here's a close-up of the top-half of Lauren Nigri's locker for her project, 

THE BALLAD OF R&J

One of the interesting points of the exhibit design, is that by clustering the lockers in the center of the room, it created a "courtyard" in the middle, and so we have a couple lockers that we took the backs off of, so that someone can see through INTO the courtyard in the, it's lined with mylar, and we've put a studnet project in there with the actual built item.... the team is very grateful to Caitlin McLeod for letting us use her QUEEN MAB performance skirt for this stunning (and hopefully surprising) addition to the exhibit.

with the room lights off

with flash!

Tomorrow, the team is meeting at 1pm to look at the final finished product and make any last changes we need. will have those pictures (and maybe a video) tomorrow.

Now, on to Prague....

I re-covered a fair amount of area today, but after we called it a "day" I had some time to wander, and I swung down by the National Theatre....(#1) where I picked up my ticket for the opera tomorrow night (very excited). 

The National is located right along the Vltava by the Most Legii (Legii Bridge). From the vantage point of this last picture, I turned around and shot toward Prague Castle and got this one...

and then walked a few paces before turning my camera on Most Legii

I then walked parallel to the river up to the Karlov Most (Charles Bridge) (#2) which is a MAJOR pedestrian thoroughfare from Stare Mesto to the adjoining areas on the westside of the Vltava... Hradcany (the Castle area) and Mala Strana (Lesser Town). (#3) I'll cover these areas in more detail tomorrow, but here are a couple shots of Karlov Most....

the gate onto Karlov Most

looking over the edge toward Most Legii

as you get over the river, the climb becomes very steep toward the castle, or you veer to the left or right and you head down into Mala Strana. Here, I had just gotten off the bridge and was looking up the hill toward St George's Church, which is only a small part of the way up to the castle.

I went upa  bit, but then veered down into Mala Strana, as I turned to head 

back toward the bridge I got this shot looking toward St George's

crossing eastward back over Karlov Most, looking into Stare Mesto.

Tomorrow (well.. today, it's already 2am) is my one open day to explore the city as I'll be very busy with exhibit and other things PQ on WED and THU. I already have a planned route in mind.. let's hope my feet hold out!