Gwyneth

Gwyneth is a play about social media and “wellness” culture, devised by Chelsea Pace and the ensemble. The play focuses on a group of social media influencers attending a wellness summit modeled after those hosted by new-age wellness gurus such as Gwyneth Paltrow, and touches on issues such as cultural appropriation, body image, LGBTQ experiences, racism, personal identity, and the pressures of living in an “instagrammable” world. Unfortunately, the show was unable to premiere due to Covid-19, however we were able to make it to tech rehearsals.

I designed and selected the set pieces and props to create the world of this wellness summit, largely inspired by the precisely curated spaces seen in the content produced by instagram influencers. The set is divided into several distinct spaces for the actors to use for various workshops, vignettes, and monologues throughout the duration of the summit, including a lifestyle vlogging area downstage right, a fashion and beauty area upstage right, a garden area downstage left, and a kitchen area upstage left. The upstage center platform is dedicated to a chair for “G,” the guru running the summit. The projection screen served as a display for social media stats for each character, images and graphics relevant to the topics being discussed, and at times displayed a live feed of characters vlogging, highlighting the disconnect between reality and what is presented on social media.

The design process for this piece was highly collaborative as I worked with both the director and the assistant deviser, as well as sat in on rehearsals and devising sessions with the ensemble, to build a world around a concept for a play which would not have a concrete script or structure until the build process was already underway. Flexibility was incredibly important, as while the set is comprised of distinct areas, it couldn’t be too rigid or prescribed as the show was being developed and changed throughout the design process, and the set needed to be able to accommodate any changes the ensemble may make. This process also involved significant collaboration and problem solving with the lighting and multimedia designers, as we created flexible options and solutions to ensure that we reached a design that would be cohesive and effective while also providing the necessary amount of flexibility for a newly-devised work.