Artist Statement

      Throughout the arch of As You Like It, we see a cast of characters shake off the constraints of a world they have outgrown and explore a new array of expressions, beliefs, identities, and ways of being. As a design team, it was important to us to create contrast between the harsh, rigid, and oppressive court and the refuge, beauty, and freedom experienced in Arden.

      Set during the Gilded Age, lighting supports this journey beginning with the marquee inspired lighting of the proscenium arch and footlights, as well as the warm color quality of the technology of the time to place us instantly in the presentational and facade like nature of the court.         As we move into Arden, we are introduced to a beautiful naturalistic forest. But as characters create schemes and fall in love, the forest takes on a magical quality of its own with more saturated color choices and combinations.

      In the culminating wedding scene, we see a marriage between the binaries of the natural and the theatrical; the courtly arch and footlights come back, experienced in a different way by the audience and our characters. Arden itself is turned into a theatre, reminding us that "all the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players."