I'm Not Here Right Now

"Claire grew up in the Slovenian Alps, where a billion years of life lurks among deadly snowdrifts and silent glaciers. Even now, as a researcher for Cambridge University, she cannot escape the call to return home. But even a lifetime of knowledge cannot prepare her for the secrets she finds there and the questions which follow. Who will believe her? How far can she trust what she saw?"

I'm Not Here Right Now  was intended to be performed as part of the 'On The Horizon' theatre festival at the University of York's School of Arts & Creative Technologies. A production by some of the university's theatre students as part of their third-year final project (also known as the Independent Group Project, or IGP), I was brought in early-on in the development process to serve as one of two unassessed designers.

Throughout the Research & Development process of the project, I had the opportunity to really gain a sense of the style of the production, and had various design meetings with the director of the show to come up with a creative and cohesive aesthetic design - through which I eventually chose to specialise as the lighting designer for the production. Within my lighting design, I primarily chose to make use of cold, artificial LED lighting, as this reflected the tone of the show very effectively. As there are so many locations presented within I'm Not Here Right Now, it was important that each individual scene had a coherent yet unique visual appearance. I am particularly proud of the Northern Lights effect that I created for this production, which saw shifting green and blue light patterns pooling across the stage.

One of the major design elements I chose to employ was the use of a projector, rigged directly above the stage, and through which we could display various elements on the floor - footprints, the floorplan of a flat, a courtroom, etc. This alleviated a lot of the stress from other areas of the design, particularly set, with the intention of creating a very minimalist and unique visual for the audience. 

I'm Not Here Right Now  was put on in a closed-door performance on the 6th of June in the Dawn Theatre at the School of Arts & Creative Technologies.