
HAMLET
Utah Shakespeare Festival 2019
Director: Brian Vaughn
Scene Design: Jason Lajka
Lighting Design: William C Kirkham
Costume Design: Bill Black
Technical Director: Thomas K Fagerholm
Assistant Technical Director: Robert J Anderson

This production ran July through October in repertory with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The main portion of the Hamlet set was on casters and broke into several pieces in order to change over quickly and easily with minimal crew.
The fact that the main playing space for Hamlet was elevated 8+ inches and raked at an angle created another scenic challenge. Since the set needed to changeover in such a short time, the set was broken into four units with seams hidden behind walls or along tiled grout lines. This made the seams disappear from the view of the audience.
Video clips from the production can be found HERE.
To see video clip from the changeover from Hamlet to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat click HERE. Special thanks to USF for the video.
Photo: Karl Hugh
PRODUCTION BID: LABOR & MATERIALS
Bidding labor and materials in the pre-season in a major responsibility for the technical director at USF. The main page at left gives a summary breakdown of the budget and labor expenses overall and for each unit for Hamlet. One element that the Scenery Director and I determined would make this show viable for changeover, was new zero-throw casters. The ones in stock at USF were shop built and had considerable resistance over commercial options. The scenery director did some pre-season testing for us and confirmed that new casters would greatly reduce the friction and therefore force needed to move the large wagons needed in Hamlet.
One can see this budget item at the bottom of the list but not included in the overall budget. It was determined that the Production Manager would approach the development office and to do an ask to donors for the additional funds. USF was very fortunate to receive the funds necessary for the purchase.

Budgets and spreadsheets are not the easiest to read or understand for all collaborators on a project. I find it helpful to include pie charts for an "at a glance " evaluation of where resources are being allocated. This helps understand what elements of a scenic design are taking up a larger portion of the resources.
The production shop at USF is quite spacious but with two large shows in the Randall theater and three shows for the Englestad, space was limited. To expedite our load-in, we did mockups of the staircase and raked deck in the shop to make sure they would connect as intended. This proved extremely helpful at load-in and led to a first tech with much of the scenery completed, something that was atypical of summer seasons in the Randall Theater.


Photo: Karl Hugh

Photo: Karl Hugh

Photo: Karl Hugh

Photo: Karl Hugh
