{"id":1362,"date":"2024-12-15T11:05:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T16:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2024-12-15T11:05:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T16:05:27","slug":"how-redwood-hits-new-heights-on-broadway-with-an-innovative-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/how-redwood-hits-new-heights-on-broadway-with-an-innovative-design\/","title":{"rendered":"How Redwood Hits New Heights on Broadway With an Innovative Design"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The new Broadway musical Redwood<\/em> aims high. Literally.<\/p>\n

Much of the show, which brings musical theater icon Idina Menzel back to Broadway for the first time in a decade, takes place hundreds of feet in the air, in the canopy of the redwood forest in Northern California. Conjuring the sense and scale of that height onstage is no small feat \u2014 and to pull it off, the production enlisted a crack team of designers all working in tandem to actualize the altitude.<\/p>\n

Redwood<\/em> follows a successful businesswoman named Jesse (played by Menzel) who suddenly leaves her life behind to find meaning \u2014 and healing \u2014 in the redwoods. \u201cThis isn\u2019t your normal musical,\u201d says Jason Ardizzone-West, the show\u2019s set designer. \u201cOn the surface, it takes place in some naturalistic locations, mostly in the redwood forest and in a tree. But really it takes place in the mind of Jesse. So the design of the space is an interesting combination of abstraction and tangibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaborating with Ardizzone-West to create a mutable, immersive space are the projection designer, Hana S. Kim; lighting designer, Scott Zielinski; and sound designer, Jonathan Deans. There\u2019s even a \u201cvertical choreographer,\u201d Melecio Estrella of the airborne dance troupe BANDALOOP, who crafts a soaring movement vocabulary for a piece that sees Menzel and her costars don arborist climbing harnesses to scale the 20-foot-plus heights of the Nederlander Theatre\u2019s proscenium stage.<\/p>\n

The production\u2019s deceptively simple set design centers on the 13-foot-wide trunk of a redwood tree, surrounded by an abstract and geometric space that Ardizzone-West describes as a sculptural \u201ccanvas\u201d of LED screens. Projection designer Kim paints on that canvas, using digital video not only to create components of the environment but also to reveal individual perspectives of each character\u2019s experience of a place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to see the forest, but also we need to see the forest how Jesse sees it,\u201d she says. Her work is also a key component in conveying a sense of height. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s the movement of video that\u2019s most useful in that regard,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe have an intro sequence when we go up in the trees, and video, with that motion of going upward, really helps show how high up in the tree we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the process, Kim has worked closely with lighting designer Zielinski. \u201cI\u2019m trying to take the sense of really being in the forest and give it as much three-dimensionality as I can,\u201d Zielinski says. \u201cThe lighting becomes an extension of the projections, in a way, where we use haze to create atmosphere, and then take these visual compositions that come from the projections and extend them out into the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Kim\u2019s work draws on images she collected over the course of research trips to the real-life redwoods, sound designer Deans also traveled to Northern California to find inspiration for his sound palette.<\/p>\n

The story of Redwood <\/em>begins in New York City, but once Jesse arrives in the redwoods, \u201ceverything in the sound design just opens up,\u201d Deans says. \u201cI went and recorded stuff in the redwoods so I could understand what it\u2019s like to be enveloped by that sound. You\u2019re engulfed in silence a lot of the time, but when you really listen, it\u2019s not silence. It\u2019s the sound of the forest, and it\u2019s this overall effect that\u2019s more than just the critters and the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid all this, the show\u2019s actors actually leave the ground to ensure the production\u2019s sense of height is more than just abstract. Under the guidance of choreographer Estrella, the cast ascends and descends on ropes using self-locking belay devices and other arborist equipment.<\/p>\n

That setup lends a sense of realism to the production. It also allows for movement that sometimes turns lyrical. \u201cThere are moments when we enter a space that\u2019s more than reality, and those moments are quite dance-y,\u201d Estrella says. A robust backstage crew helps ensure the cast\u2019s safety, and so far the fear of heights isn\u2019t something the production has had to contend with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese theater artists are incredible,\u201d Estrella says. \u201cThey\u2019re already so brave because their whole practice is about being seen and being vulnerable. It\u2019s like they\u2019ve developed courage over decades. When we think about dancing on a rope, our whole sense of space and possibility opens up, and it\u2019s really cool to see that happening with Idina and the cast.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to all of that, audiences can expect the designers\u2019 work to extend beyond the proscenium in order to surround theatergoers in this unique designscape. \u201cIf you want something that\u2019s immersive, then go see this show,\u201d Deans says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new Broadway musical Redwood aims high. Literally. Much of the show, which brings musical theater icon Idina Menzel back to Broadway for the first time in a decade, takes place hundreds of feet in the air, in the canopy of the redwood forest in Northern California. Conjuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[80,81],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-80","tag-redwood"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/013_Redwood_Direct_Secondary_Feat_1200x450-e1734278718975.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-lY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1364,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}