DOWNTOWN

Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Nixon Theatre - Irvine, CA​

Director: Audrey Napoli
Lighting Designer: Sonya Wong
Sound Designer: Kyle Causey
Stage Manager: Elliot Guo

Photos: Annelies Veldman

Jeffrey Hatcher’s Downtown follows three friends at a club as they observe and discuss the patrons they see. Starting out civilized, the night quickly devolves into arguments and accusations of bad fashion, emotional death, and emotional blandness directed at everyone in the club, including each other. The lighting focused on creating the venue where this play takes place. It started out dark with flashing lights to fully immerse the audience in the nightclub atmosphere, and then slowly brightened to a place where the actors’ faces were visible. The flashing lights became less overt as to not be distracting, but enough of the effect was kept so the audience could stay in the world of the club. The majority of the lighting cues were synced to the soundtrack created by the sound designer in order to fully sell the nightclub atmosphere.