Working In The Theatre: Scenic Design

Summary

The speaker reflects on their journey as a set designer, with early inspirations from opera and a pivotal mentorship from Hal Prince. They draw parallels between set design and architecture, emphasizing the ephemeral nature of stage scenery. The creative process involves concept development, model building, and collaboration with directors and lighting designers. Challenges include transforming spaces over time and engaging audiences viscerally. The speaker also discusses the impermanence and sustainability concerns of set design, highlighting the joy of constant learning and the satisfaction of seeing a design come to life with actors.

Takeaways

• 🎭 The speaker's initial fascination with stage scenery came from witnessing a Stonehenge-like set and the illusion of a heavy stone being moved easily during an opera.
• 🤝 The speaker met Hal Prince, who became a mentor, and it took about six months to overcome the intimidation of working with such a significant figure in American theatre history.
• 🏗️ The transition from architecture to set design was natural for the speaker, as the tasks involved in both disciplines, such as building models and drafting, are similar.
• 🎨 The speaker's introduction to painting and three-dimensional work eventually led to an interest in scenography, with a teacher suggesting the field.
• 💡 A strong concept or idea is crucial for the speaker's design process, as it guides all other visual choices and helps in avoiding design dilemmas.
• 🖼️ The set design's role in theatre is to frame the human figure, akin to how a camera frames subjects in film, with the set and lighting working together to create this effect.
• 🔄 The speaker views scenery design as a transformation of space over time, focusing on the seamless transition between scenes to support the storytelling.
• 👀 Engaging the audience's interest and creating a visceral connection with the performance is a priority in the speaker's design considerations.
• 🛠️ The speaker emphasizes the importance of collaboration with directors, lighting designers, and other crew members to realize a cohesive vision for the production.
• 🌐 The speaker has started to incorporate video and projections into set design, sometimes taking on the role of projection designer to align the visuals with their vision.
• 🏚️ The ephemeral nature of set design is acknowledged, with the speaker expressing concern about the environmental impact and waste associated with the disposal of sets after a production's run.

Q & A

What was the speaker's first realization about stage scenery?

The speaker's first realization about stage scenery was during an opera when they saw a man push what appeared to be a twenty thousand pound stone, but was clearly not, understanding it as an artifice representing something else.

How did Hal Prince initially influence the speaker?

Hal Prince influenced the speaker by sending a letter after their first meeting, expressing appreciation for the speaker's work, and later becoming a mentor to the speaker throughout their career.

What is the relationship between set design and architecture according to the speaker?

The speaker sees set design and architecture as flip sides of the same coin, with tasks such as building models and drafting being essentially the same, but set design is more ephemeral.

How did the speaker's experience in Italy influence their career path?

The speaker's experience in Italy started with an interest in painting, which then led them back to three-dimensional work, building installations and objects, and eventually being introduced to scenography.

What is the speaker's approach to conceptualizing a set design?

The speaker finds that having a good concept or idea that encapsulates the show in a simple way helps determine every other choice in the design, guiding them through all the visual choices.

How does the speaker view the role of the set in theater?

The speaker views the set as creating the frame and surround for presenting the human figure in theater, similar to how the camera frames things in film, with the set largely handling this task with some help from lighting.

What is the speaker's recent perspective on scenery design?

The speaker's recent perspective on scenery design is that it is a transformation of space over time, focusing on how to get from point A to point B quickly and seamlessly to help tell the story.

How does the speaker engage with the audience's experience in their designs?

The speaker is interested in engaging the audience in a more visceral way, considering the relationship between the audience and the play, especially when designing for flexible seating.

What is the speaker's process for collaborating with directors on a play?

The speaker's process involves reading the play without preconceptions, having a long talk with the director to understand their vision, and focusing on the feel of the play rather than specific design elements.

How does the speaker use models in their design process?

The speaker uses models as a way to quickly move from an idea to a three-dimensional form, allowing them to catch compositional issues and make changes before finalizing the design.

What is the speaker's view on the impermanence of set design compared to architecture?

The speaker views the impermanence of set design as a tragedy, as sets are often thrown away after a production ends, and they try to keep and reuse things as much as possible, coming from an architectural background.

Outlines

00:00

🎭 Early Influences and Mentorship

The narrator recalls vivid childhood memories of their mother, an opera singer, taking them backstage during a performance of Verdi's Macbeth, where they first grasped the concept of stage scenery as an artifice. They also recount meeting Hal Prince, a mentor whose influence helped shape their career in set design.

05:00

🎨 Transition from Architecture to Set Design

The narrator explains how they transitioned from architecture to set design, highlighting the similarities between the two fields. They describe their initial foray into painting and installation art, and how a teacher suggested scenography, leading them to graduate school and a career in theater.

10:05

🏗️ Conceptualizing and Creating Set Designs

The process of set design is discussed in detail, emphasizing the importance of a strong concept. The narrator describes their method of developing ideas, creating models, and collaborating with directors and other designers. They highlight the iterative nature of refining designs and the challenges of bringing a set from concept to reality.

15:07

📐 Role of Scenery in Theater and Audience Engagement

The significance of set design in framing the action on stage is explored. The narrator discusses how set design influences audience engagement and the collaborative process with directors to achieve the desired atmosphere and visual storytelling. They also touch on the evolving role of scenery in the context of modern theater.

20:08

🛠️ Collaborative Process and Material Inspiration

The narrator delves into the collaborative nature of set design, particularly with choreographers and lighting designers. They describe how initial inspirations often come from materials and the importance of physical exploration and experimentation in their creative process. The use of models as a key tool for visualizing and refining designs is also emphasized.

25:11

🚀 Bringing Designs to Life

The final stages of set design involve technical drawings, construction, and installation. The narrator outlines the journey from model to full-scale set, including the challenges of technical rehearsals and the collaborative effort required to bring a set to life. They reflect on the impermanence of set design and the importance of creating impactful, though temporary, environments.

Keywords

💡Opera singer

An opera singer is a vocalist who performs in operas, typically with advanced vocal training and a wide range of vocal techniques. In the script, the speaker's mother was an opera singer, which introduced the speaker to the world of theater and stagecraft at a young age, setting the stage for their future career in set design.

💡Stage scenery

Stage scenery refers to the physical settings and decorations on a stage, used to create the environment for a theatrical performance. The script describes the speaker's realization of stage scenery as an artifice, which was pivotal in shaping their understanding of set design as a representation of something else, rather than a literal depiction.

💡Hal Prince

Hal Prince is a renowned theater director and producer known for his significant contributions to the American theater in the 20th century. In the script, the speaker mentions Hal Prince as a mentor, indicating the influence of his work and guidance on the speaker's professional development in set design.

💡Scenography

Scenography is the art of designing and creating the visual elements of a stage production, including the set, lighting, costume, and props. The term is highlighted in the script when the speaker recounts a teacher suggesting 'scenography' as a career path, which led the speaker to pursue set design in graduate school.

💡Ephemeral

Ephemeral refers to something that is temporary or short-lived. In the context of the script, the speaker describes set design as an ephemeral art form, as opposed to architecture, which is more permanent. This distinction highlights the transient nature of theater sets that are often dismantled after a production run.

💡Technical rehearsals

Technical rehearsals are a phase in theater production where all technical elements, including lighting, sound, and set pieces, are integrated with the actors' performances. The script mentions this as the final stage before a show's opening, where the set's effectiveness in storytelling is tested and refined.

💡Transformation of space

The concept of transformation of space in the script refers to the process of altering the physical environment of a stage to suit the narrative and emotional needs of a theatrical production. The speaker describes this as a key aspect of their work, emphasizing the dynamic nature of set design in theater.

💡Engagement

In the script, engagement refers to the interaction between the audience and the theatrical piece. The speaker discusses the importance of designing sets that engage the audience in a visceral way, making them an active part of the performance rather than passive observers.

💡Material selection

Material selection is the process of choosing the physical materials used in set design. The script describes the speaker's approach to early-stage design, where materials can inspire the overall concept. This highlights the tactile and sensory aspects of set design, which contribute to the audience's experience.

💡Projection design

Projection design involves the use of video or projected images as part of the stage design. The speaker mentions the growing role of projection in theater and their involvement in creating projections themselves, indicating a convergence of set design and multimedia elements to enhance storytelling.

💡Collaboration

Collaboration in the script refers to the process of working with various team members, such as directors, choreographers, and lighting designers, to create a cohesive theatrical production. The speaker emphasizes the importance of collaboration in realizing their vision for the set and the overall production.

Highlights

The speaker's initial understanding of stage scenery as an artifice came from watching a scene change during an opera.

Meeting Hal Prince, a significant mentor in the speaker's career, occurred right after graduate school.

Working with Hal Prince was initially intimidating, but it took about six months for the speaker to overcome this fear.

The speaker's transition from architecture to set design was influenced by the similar tasks involved, such as building models and drafting.

A painting class in college sparked the speaker's interest in three-dimensional work, eventually leading to set design.

Scenography was suggested as a career by a teacher, prompting the speaker to attend graduate school for theatre.

The speaker's first job in the field was as an assistant designer for George Seaton, who had an architecture background.

A strong concept for a set design helps guide all other visual choices and prevents design dilemmas.

The set in theatre serves as a frame and surround for the human figure, similar to how a camera frames subjects in film.

The speaker's recent approach to set design involves transforming space over time to enhance storytelling.

Engaging the audience in a visceral way is a key consideration in set design, especially with flexible seating.

Constant learning is a favorite aspect of being a designer, as each play brings new ideas and inspirations.

The speaker values the collaborative process with directors to understand the feel and atmosphere of a play.

Creating a rough model is a key step in the design process, allowing the speaker to refine the concept over time.

Technical rehearsals are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of a set in supporting the storytelling.

The speaker finds early-stage material selection and inspiration crucial for the design process.

The speaker's process involves extensive research, including visiting libraries and exploring materials.

Three-dimensional models are preferred over drawings for their intuitive and accurate representation of space.

Collaboration with lighting and projection designers is essential for the final look and feel of the set.

The speaker's aesthetic leans towards abstract and sculptural designs rather than realism.

The speaker discusses the challenges and considerations of designing sets for plays that are not fully written yet.

Budget constraints influence set design, but a strong concept can adapt to different budget levels.

Theater set design's impermanence is a concern for the speaker, as sets are often discarded after a production.

The speaker's preference for using real materials over painted versions can sometimes present practical challenges.

The speaker values the comfort and inspiration actors find in the set, as it indicates a successful design.

Collaborating with choreographers is different and often more aligned with the speaker's architectural background.

Transcripts

[music]

My mother trained as an opera singer and when I was quite young I vividly remember

her taking me backstage during the intermission of Verdi's Macbeth and I

watched the scene change and there was a sort of big Stonehenge looking set on

stage and this man walked out and pushed one of the boulders across the stage and

I was just shocked because it looked for all the world like a twenty thousand

pound stone and yet clearly it wasn't and I think that was the first time I

kind of understood stage scenery as an artifice, as something representing

something else.

I met Hal Prince when I was getting out

of graduate school, we talked for a minute or two when I was completely

overwhelmed and terrified of him but the next week he sent me a letter

and said it was nice to meet you it was nice to see your work so Hal has always

been a mentor to me that way. The first time I was really working with him I

think it took me about six months not to be completely terrified.

You walk into his office and the entire history of the 20th century of American theatre is on the wall.

He either directed or produced most of it.

People often asked me, "How did you how did you find your way

to doing set design from architecture?" and I always think it's a funny question

because to me the tasks that I'm doing are exactly the same: building models and drafting.

However, it's almost like set design and architecture the flip sides

of the same coin that with set design it's it's a completely ephemeral thing.

I took my first painting class my senior year of college and after that I wanted

to do a little bit more painting and I spent a year in Italy ostensibly

painting but then making my way back to three-dimensional the 3-dimensional world.

I started building installations and objects and it was actually a

teacher of mine he said to me one day "Have you thought about scenography?"

[LAUGHS]

He's British so you know that's their word for set design so then I went to

graduate school because I didn't know anything about theatre

When I graduated I worked as an assistant designer for a few years and I assisted

a designer named George Seaton who also had an architecture background.

His studio was sort of like a sculpture studio, you know and it was great.

I find if I get a good concept, a good idea that really kind of encapsulates

the show in a simple way it it helps me determine every other choice I need to

make in the design and everything else just kind of falls into place because it

answers a question and sort of guides me through all the other visual choices

that I do and if I don't have a good concept or a good solid idea for it

that's when I get into trouble and I start thinking well I don't know what

the answer is I don't know whether it should be blue or red because my idea

isn't strong enough.

A huge part of what the set does in theater is it creates the frame and the

surround that we present the human figure in. I think what in film the

camera does in framing things the set largely has to do in theatre with some

help from the lighting.

I've started thinking recently of scenery design as a

transformation of space over time is kind of what I'm doing.

A big part of my

job is how do I get from point A to point B quickly and seamlessly in a way

hopefully that helps tell the story well.

What I like to think about actually is like what is the nature of the event?

I've always been interested in like how the audience is engaging with the piece

like how to engage the audience in a more visceral way, so often when I'm

designing a play when there's flexible seating I think about what the

relationship is between the audience and the play actually that's sort of the

first question that I that I think about.

One of my favorite things about being a designer is that I'm constantly learning.

When I get a play that I've been asked to design, I'll read it and I try to read

it without too much preconception of anything I just sort of read it and see

what images pop into my head and before I spend too much time trying to figure

out what the set should be I'd sit down with the director and I just like to

have a good long talk with the director or maybe several good talks with the

director to find out what they think the play is about what they're trying to to

get across in our telling of the play, and I don't tend to be

interested in you know do you think the set should be green or do you think it

should be this style or those kind of things so much but I want to know what's

the feel of it? Does it feel cold? Does it feel warm? Does it feel friendly? Does it feel unfriendly?

I can make a model a sort of a rough model but finished enough that

it looks like something I just sit it on the shelf for you know a week or you

know for a few days at least so it's kind of there in my studio while I'm

working on other things and I kind of see it in my peripheral vision and

usually then I'll start to think "Oh, well, that doesn't look quite right," or some

part of it will bug me and just by having it kind of there on the periphery

I start to catch things that I want to change about it or the feel of it isn't

quite right, that the kinetic energy in it isn't quite right, and I'll start to

mess with those things compositionally.

Somewhere in there is where we sort of nail down what the set is and the model

gets more and more finished and more and more looking like what the final set is

going to be.

And then I have to actually get that you know that small model and

make the big version of it and for that then I've got to do a bunch of technical

drawings and we send it out to a shop to build the full-scale set and then

ultimately that moves from the shop that's built it gets taken apart and

brought into the theatre and installed in the theatre and then we go into

technical rehearsals where you add lighting and you add the sound and the

actors get onto the set for the first time and that's really where it all

comes together and that's where you learn whether the set was actually a

good idea or not I kind of really don't know until we're running the play on

this on the set, and you see if it works for telling the story or not.

Sometimes, something looked really beautiful and seemed like a great idea just doesn't

somehow work to tell the story the way you thought it would and sometimes

something that I really thought might not work, you know, I was worried

about it or didn't think it was a great idea and suddenly once you get the

actors in there to activate it and live inside it, it becomes alive and it really

does work.

When I'm in early stages of working on a project, often it involves going to buy materials.

Sometimes one of the early inspirations for design can be a material.

I will go to the paper store and see like what kind of paper you know feels right.

This is my favorite part is you know is kind of

trolling about and like kind of letting your thoughts wander and seeing

what hits me- going to the library! That's a big part of my process.

Sometimes I go and I just like wander through the aisles and just pick

random books like sometimes you don't really know what you're looking for yet,

There's also this room called the picture collection at the

Mid- Manhattan library which I pretty much go there at the beginning of every design process.

I don't know there's something about being in that space that is more

contemplative than sitting in front of a computer.

I tend to draw only as much as

I need to in order to figure out the idea.

And then, I try to move to a model form as quickly as possible that I feel like I'm really

a very three-dimensional person and so I think I figure things out more

intuitively in a model form.

For me models don't lie so in a drawing you can

make it work, like you can fudge things you don't, the implication of

depth in a drawing is just all by perspective and so you can fake that so

there are things I think that you might not realize in a drawing but as soon as

you build it in a model three dimensionally you realize

"Oh, we're going to see that side."

And then in communicating with directors and

choreographers and people who don't might not necessarily understand a

technical drawing- like things exist in three dimensions, so a model is just a

smaller form of it but it's closer to reality so it's easier to understand and

communicate with other people.

So I'm actually just getting ready to ship

this model to Chicago, to the theater, but I actually have built a new object that

I need to look at in this model so I need to unpack it.

This is a play that's about the urbanization of China, it's called

The World of Extreme Happiness. We have decided to use a kind of neutral

envelope for all of the scenes. So then this space opens up and actually acts

like a diorama this is a moment when they're wandering through the

countryside.

You know it's written in a pretty filmic

way and we cut from like you know it's the magic of you know the fluorescently

lit factory, essentially, then the final scene is in a mental hospital, that's

sort of the final the final scene.

Basically I've shot photographed every

scene so this is this is the beginning and then the second scene

so I've storyboarded through with the model.

It's a projection moment.

This was the grass scene that I was setting up and there's there's also a backdrop

The idea for act 1 really came to me in one of those lucky Eureka moments.

The first draft that I read was 150 pages long it had 50 locations in it and all

of them were very short scene so I had to get from one place to the next very quickly.

I'd done a model of a kind of an empty backstage approach to the play and

all the different locations would be you know an actor drags out a chair and

suddenly were in an office and they bring out a desk and were in a different

place I was going to show to James Lepine the director and the night before

that meeting I had this kind of nagging feeling that the idea just wasn't good

enough but suddenly I said wait a minute no instead of doing this empty bare

stage let me do a great big turning thing that has a multiple level thing on

it and each one of those locations had a little cubbyhole onstage that it existed

in and the set would turn and you would be play a space here or a space here a

space up here and a lot of the needs of the play were difficult and we're sort

of answered by that kind of a design. So, we had the sort of the fancy set for

George Kaufman's townhouse and the not so fancy tenement where Mosshart grew up

with a stairwell leading up to the roof all the laundry in the backyard.

And the theater here which curtain came in and out and we played lots of

different theater scenes here and there was a whole audience up in the balcony

sometimes, audience in the box.

One play that I worked on recently a few months ago was called An Octoroon, it was

at Soho Rep, Sarah Benson, the director, she and I both I think are interested in

this question of what is the nature of the event and we started talking about

it like maybe as in more of a performance-art context, as opposed to a

theater context and the reason for that was because we really wanted the audience

to not be able to sit back and like hold this piece at a distance.

Like as a historical piece, like this is not something you know we're living in a

post-racial society and we don't need to think about that anymore, we wanted it to

be like actually like- the audience like physically and viscerally affected by

the production. The wall that you see when you're coming in, 14 foot high wall

would fall towards the audience and when that happens like the gust of air that's

you know blowing out the audience is quite immense. Soho Rep is a tiny theatre.

It's got 70 seats and the audience was literally five feet away

from where the wall landed and it reveals two women dressed as 19th

century slaves knee-deep in a sea of cotton balls the next scene in the play

is that were in a plantation and I didn't want to depict any sort of

realistic architecture you know it wanted to be you know sort of abstract in a way.

When I'm dealing with sort of more realistic things where the

characters are that inhabit that space becomes very important and in that sense

you kind of have to put yourself into the mind of the character you know as

much as you can and it is I guess almost like acting or you know sort of thinking

through what would the character do, what would they choose, if it's a sort of a

talky play, where people are just sitting around that I need to provide

chairs and things for them to sit on and sort of focus areas around the set that

will draw an actor over here over, over here, to help with the staging and give the

director a reason to make a person walk from the side of the stage to the other

so it's not just a random movement but it's motivated in some way by something

that's existing on the set.

My aesthetic bent is definitely not realism. I feel like the reason that we

do theater is to be able to see something different and see something

differently.

This is for the dance piece to the Schubert music and the ideas that

we're going to make a forest of trees out of string.

I would say that my

favorite things to do are generally a little bit more abstract and sculptural.

My work with a lighting designer is very important to me, how the light lands on

the set, how it affects and shapes the set is so important to me. There's a lot

of just kind of physical back-and-forth that you know if I put this piece of

scenery here, you can put a light here, and you can put a speaker here and we

all have to play together in the same space.

And as video has become more and

more a part of theater, I'll have a lot of interplay with a video or projection

designer as well so that the set is a surface that will take projection well

and in the past year or so I've started doing the projections myself sometimes

because as the set designer I have a lot of opinion about what that should be

and sometimes it I would prefer just to do it myself and have it kind of be my vision.

The people who are building the set is really a collaboration with

me as well and all of those people need to have a sense of what I want as a

designer because I can't be there dealing with every little detail of all

of it I need to have a team of people who kind of understand my taste and

says it works almost like a symphony that everybody's doing their part and it

all comes together to create something that's coherent.

Here it is.

On the tomb.

So that's John's only copy of that, guard it and maybe once you're done get

it back to him but I think if you can get it up in some kind of online way for

us all to access it would be great.

Collaborating with the choreographers is very different from collaborating with

directors I find. choreographers obviously tend to think more spatially I

actually think choreographers and architects get along very well.

They think about space in a sculptural way. They're basically composing bodies

moving in space, sometimes directors are not necessarily, you know, understanding

space quite as strongly as a choreographer.

I think the biggest compliment I find when I'm working on a play and then

actors come and they discover the set and they start living on the set and if

they say to me like oh I feel really comfortable in this space or like I feel

inspired by the space like that's always like the best feeling.

There's a company I work with a lot in Philadelphia called Pig-Iron Theatre Company.

They create a performance as a group and so all of the

text is generally generated by the actors improvising in rehearsal and the

design is created alongside the piece.

But what's great about that is that as a

designer I'm there from the very beginning and potentially a design

proposal that I put out there at the beginning could could really you know

dictate the direction that the piece is taking.

I find it to be a very gratifying way to work.

It's me and the actors and the director in a room before we know

what the play is.

You know sometimes designing a show that isn't fully written yet can be a big

challenge when I when I was hired to do The Last Five Years, Jason Brown hadn't

finished writing the show. I had an outline and could I kind of generally

knew what it would be so I had to design a set for a show that wasn't fully

written yet it was similar on Sondheim on Sondheim and in both cases I think it

was exciting and they're actually two of my favorite sets that I've done.

In some ways I think not having the rigidness of a finished play was was

kind of liberating.

There's definitely like the fear at the beginning of every

project when you're staring at the kind of blank piece of paper or the empty

model box of the theater and you're just like I have no idea what I'm going to do.

It's a good kind of fear you know it's um feels like it's full of possibility?

My real nervousness is that sort of jump from the small scale to the big and

putting the people into it and you know it as much as I have some expertise

doing it, I've done it a lot of times, I'm nervous every time. You never know for

sure until you see the big thing if it what looked good this big is

really going to look good this big.

The budget is important to me obviously

because it affects what I can do if my concept for the set is sound is really

good then I can do the cheap version or the expensive version but obviously you

can't have a big grand expensive difficult idea if you don't have a big

grand expensive difficult budget but I feel like most things can be solved in

sort of a simple evocative way with scenery. If you're careful you can really

stretch the money and and that's the one secret I've found to trying to make a

budget bigger than it feels like it is.

I do always know the budget before I'm

starting the project but generally I don't tend to let it affect my

thinking too directly at the beginning unless it is very extreme, you know, like

unless the budget is literally like $200 and I know that I'm going to have to

come up with some kind of very simple idea or some kind of interesting

material that's going to be a single gesture.

Other than that, if it's just

kind of you know a normal budget which can range from you know ten thousand to

a hundred thousand dollars I would say my process would probably be about the same.

I feel like it's always best to to not be hampered by thoughts of the

budget at first, for the very you know just genesis of the idea, I try not to

think about it too much and then you know soon after that I'm trying to

figure out how to make it work.

Theater, I fear, is an inherently not very eco-friendly artform.

Sets tend to be

thrown away at the end of a production. I think everybody tries to be sustainable

about it and and I do try to save stuff and it was interesting working at

Lincoln Center recently almost all the props for the show were things that we

pulled out of storage either Lincoln Center had them in storage or some other

theater did and we borrowed them and use them but scenery inherently because it's

kind of a custom-made thing for a particular production used in a

particular way a lot of it gets thrown away and I always feel bad about it and

I don't know the answer to it. You would need enormous warehouse space to

try to save all that stuff.

The impermanence of set design versus

architecture: what that means is generally that after four weeks of

performance, the entire set tends to be thrown in a dumpster which always just

feels like such a tragedy. I have a hard time throwing anything away I think this

is maybe the curse of the designers like every little thing has like potentially

useful and like "Oh well that could come in handy someday," or you know, so I tend

to keep things and try to reuse things as much as possible.

Maybe this is also

coming from architecture where like I'm very interested in using real materials.

I'd rather use a real material than have a painted version of it.

It's kind of a

struggle sometimes because sometimes it's much more practical to fake it.

By the time an audience shows up I kind of know what I think of the thing, usually.

And you know and I'm interested what other people think of it too but I don't

like it even if everybody else loves it I'm kind of disgruntled about the project.

Yeah there been other times where I did a set maybe I did it quickly

or maybe the director pushed me to do something I didn't want to do and I'm

just not satisfied with it in the end and if I feel like if I really love it

even if everybody else hates it was still worth it to me.

[MUSIC]