Notes on the Poster

Developing creative for theatre has to be my favorite type of design. And when it's for a play as strong as Ten Cent Night it makes the job that much better.

I had only read the first 10 pages of the play when I first spoke to Tom & Maria about the creative and I didn't want to discuss it so I just listened. What did I come away with? "Sexy" Now, that's not unhelpful, but it's not exactly groundbreakingly original stuff. Besides which, I'm one of those annoying designers who has to read every word of content I'm working with so it can properly marinate in the back of my mind while I work on other things. When it's ready the creative pops into my head as a finished image... imagine toast popping out of the toaster when it's done... it's like that. That's when I go to work piecing together what I need to bring that image to life.

There's a lot to work with in Ten Cent Night. The characters could practically walk off the page they're so well developed and the setting is a place near and dear to me being from Texas myself. Reading the play, Ten Cent Night felt like Roby's story so all the visuals that ran though my head were of a ballsy, attractive (despite herself), young broad on a literal and figurative journey. The only question for me was... how to convey this visually?

Creating photorealistic imagery out of bits and pieces of found "stuff" is kind of my thing, but this had some pretty specific requirements. My sketches all revolved around some very specific objects.



I needed: Roby, a dirt road, an old house with a porch, a dilapidated sign, a folding chair, a guitar case and handcuffs.

The Problem(s)
Issue #1 — The play wasn't cast yet so that meant my Roby couldn't have a face.
Issue #2 — Who was I going to drag out skantily clad to the edge of a deserted road carrying a guitar case and handcuffed to a chair?
Issue #3 — Needed props, didn't want to spend money. (Not sure this is really worth listing given that this is ALWAYS an issue).

Solution
Use myself as Roby, enlist boyfriend James for photography, borrow guitar case from afore mentioned James, happen upon "lost" folding chair in public park, assemble costume from my closet borrowing grandpa's amazing cowboy boots from grandma, acquire handcuffs from sex shop.... trek to dirt road leading to local dump site and set up the shot. The funny thing is, after all the set up, the shot I used for the final creative was one that James just happened to take of me walking away from him to the next location. The tone of it was exactly what I was after. There's something so matter-of-fact about it. That said, it took some work to build the rest of the scene. Take a look at the photos to see how the creative took shape.



All in all, this was a really fun project for me. I can't wait to experience the play on stage at the VTC.

- Jennifer Logan, Vice President VTC Board of Directors and Design Principal at Studio Fuse, Inc.

See more of my work at www.studiofuse.biz.