On Dec 1 2017 we gave a public premiere of Four Mondays at the Shout House theatre in Portland, OR.

The tricky thing about premiering a radio play is that people are accustomed to looking at, well, something. But the magic of audio stories lies in the imagery that each individual conjures in their mind while listening. I didn’t want everyone sitting in the dark, or just staring at a wall. So with Arturo Martinini, a theatre producer and lighting wizard, we tried different subtle visual cues and ended up using Philips Hue lights. It’s a lighting system that can fade through literally millions of colors, and with an app they can be controlled live or preprogrammed, in effect choreographed to match the audio. He built a gauzy screen dressed with curtains to shine the lights on.

We designed color palettes for scenes and characters, experimented with the tempo and velocity of light changes until we found what seemed to be just right to carry the audience through the imaginary worlds of the radio play. At times the lights were gently twinkling, other times they were very slowly fading between colors.

I’m proud to say we sold out the theatre.