The Bakkhai

THE BAKKHAI by Euripides. Translation by Anne Carson. Arcadia University. 2022

For this show, I had the pleasure of designing both Sound and Video. I also composed the music in the production. As with most Greek Tragedies, there are several Choral Odes. For this production, we were heavily influenced by the Mega-Church world. We wanted to feel like we were at a Hillsong worship and that Dionysus was the god we were there to worship. From a sound and music perspective, that gave us tons to play with! Hillsong really pushes the edges of Christian Rock and gave us a pretty strong way into these Odes. The goal was simple - they needed to rock. Sounds easy, right? We went through may revisions of the score, mostly cutting things for time. The initial opening number was about 8 minutes. After making some edits, we managed to get that down to just under 3! Our version of Rock was a little grungier and dirtier than what you might hear at Hillsong, but I also think the Bakkhai are a much more primal group. Using their staffs (or thyrsos), we created a lot of really interesting percussion that grew as the show went on. By the final number, there was no additional music playing under them - just their voices and their percussion filling the space.

In terms of video, we had 2 gigantic video screens out in the house that broadcast a feed of the stage, similar to I-MAG screens at concerts (though on a smaller scale). For 95% of the show, there was always something on the screen. We had 1 PTZ camera at the back of the house that we operated throughout the show to give us various looks. Then we had 1 camera hidden backstage to get a shot of Dionysus on the catwalk all the way upstage. She delivered one of her final monologues directly to the camera and then we cut the feed to the screens entirely.

BAKKHAI. Arcadia University. 2022
Direction: Katherine Wilkinson
Scenic Design: Rob Napoli
Lighting Design: Joshua Schulman
Costume Design: Mary Folino
Sound and Video Design: Damien Figueras