With a $0 budget for this design, every element had to be either found, borrowed, or brought in by a group member. Upon beginning my design I knew I would need a studio table for the broadcasters to address the audience from. I based my design around a trapezoidal table that I borrowed from a lecture hall. I only found one more table of the same height. So in order to finish the angled desk look I was going for, I grabbed trash lumber from the shop and created another table that fit my needs. In order to present these as a single structure, I draped them in the fireproofing tarps from the welding station in the shop. Once the table was complete I raided the UNC Charlotte Theatre's props closet for my basic set dressing of mugs, a phone, model cars and license plates. The plate that reads A CAR NUT was actually a friend's who let me use it only for the day of the performance. A group member's grandfather also had a hubcap clock that we hung from the lighting struts.
On Air prop I constructed and wired for the performance. This piece was put together because the script we selected specifically referenced how the broadcasters did not trust the manager on his cues and needed to check the light before speaking every time.
This shows the audience perspective in our intimate black box setting. Our Signs came from UNC Charlotte's recent "How I Learned to Drive" performance and the downstage left table and chair was the caller location. A last minute change we made before performing was the choice to put the portable sound board in view of the audience just stage left of the coffee table. This simulated the position of the radio studio manager, who I ended up playing, and allowed references to him throughout the performance to be accompanied by more physical interaction. My favorite example was a bit where the broadcaster mentioned how they used to rely solely on the finger point from the studio manager to begin speaking but ever since a mistake was made in the past they always would see the point and visually confirm with the ON AIR light before speaking. This became a running gag in the performance after each commercial break and got as many laughs as the content we were using.
This is the poster I designed to advertise for my senior project. I drew inspiration from the ON AIR sign that was a running joke in our performance and backed it with a car and an old style microphone to emphasize the subject matter and classic nature of the performance.
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Car Talk
My senior project at UNC Charlotte was a staged adaptation of selections from Car Talk. My role was Scene Designer and Advertising Designer.
