Temporal Theatre
Fall 2019 // University of Michigan
Professor: Julia McMorrough
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Recognition: Taubman College Student Show 2020
Visual performances rely on the passage of time to tell a story. It is along this fourth dimension that audiences suspend their disbelief and allow their perception to be manipulated by the spectacle of a show. The Temporal Theatre acknowledges this phenomenon and foregrounds the role of a performance venue as a place to experience time.
Composed of two performance spaces, a main stage that seats 1,333 and a flexible black box theater for up to 256, the venue embraces the tradition of live performance along with the progressive nature of production and stagecraft. At the project’s center, the main stage resembles the form of classical venues like Greek amphitheaters and the Broadway stages that emulated them. The fly tower matches the footprint of the stage below and rises to the project’s highest point in order to accommodate rigging, lighting, and other mechanisms. From this highest point, the roofscape is draped over the remaining program which is arrayed radially on the site. Main entrances, rehearsal spaces, offices, a scene shop, a cafe, and the black box theater are oriented outward along a consistent horizontal datum that meets the surrounding urban condition at a pedestrian scale. Through these portals, patrons are transported from the outside condition to a place where they are able to be captivated by the live performance.
Taking the main stage is a production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The play is an example of how time and perception are able to be manipulated in live theater. The show delves into the mind of protagonist Willy Loman as he grapples with the promise of the American Dream. The audience is transported from reality to the perspective of Willy’s memory as the narrative unfolds. At the beginning of the show the set is a complete doll-house like home. As time progresses this Levittown-esque, gable roofed silhouette disintegrates showing the audience the collapse of the American Dream that is occurring in Willy’s mind.
