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 An Interview with Jesse Portillo.
Bloomington, IN—On February 8, 2007, Director of Audience Development John Edward Kinzer sat down with third-year M.F.A. student in Lighting Design Jesse Portillo to discuss his thesis in the IU Department of Theatre and Drama's upcoming production of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. The production opens Friday, February 23, at 7:30 and continues February 24 and 26-March 3. Here is an excerpt of their discussion.
John Edward Kinzer: Why/how or what was the process for selecting Twelfth Night as your thesis?
Jesse Portillo: Rob Shakespeare and I met last spring to talk about what production would be most appropriate for what my future interests were. Because of a combination of scale and having a well-known guest director, we figured that this would be the best option for me.
JEK: How did you initially respond to the play?
JP: Personally, it is not my favorite by any means. The first time I read the script, my first reaction was what's the big deal? The previous Shakespearean productions I had done were The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. …I also intentionally did not read the script until I after I had seen a production of it … at a major place. My reaction was “What are you doing?” It was taking an idea and running with it without knowing what the idea was. The next encounter with [ Twelfth Night ] was in Professor Herzel's class. [There we were] looking at the historical context and the structure of the play. I'm glad that I was able to study the text in that context.
JEK: How do you fall in love with the play?
 JP: This time was a really different experience for me because it was a guest director and a guest set designer. For this one my first meeting with [Henry Woronicz], Katherine and I met him at a coffee shop. We spoke briefly about the play, maybe five minutes, but it was principally about getting to know each other and Henry sharing his process and experience and his thoughts on the play. He planted a very small seed in our minds and said we should meet in a couple weeks. For him the play was light and dark at the same time. How do we incorporate that concept into every aspect of the lighting? So I did tons of research—from incredibly wide reaching sources—from fashion magazines to fine arts photography to oil paintings. I had a massive, massive stack. The thing I enjoyed about Henry was he would never take anything off of the table….He ended up responding a lot to some Maxfield Parrish images that I had. For a lighting designer to have permission from the director to explore that world of vibrant color and texture has been wonderful for me. Maxfield Parrish is one of my favorite painters. I always wanted an opportunity to use his work. Henry really embraced those images completely. He sent them to the set designer. They are incorporated in the costumes. There are moments in the play that are right out of the images we found.
JEK: What have you learned from Henry about the collaborative process?
JP: He is a very, very good communicator. Probably for the first time [in my career], Henry and I were able to [answer the question]: “This is what I need from the lighting design to tell this story.” He has been incredibly open to any suggestion. He is able to articulate his needs and responses in a very constructive manner. If he doesn't feel something's right, he is able to say why in a way that all the designers can understand. It's a difficult proposition to bring a guest director with extensive professional experience into an academic setting, because everything is different. Luckily, Henry's had some experience [with this] before. He was able to [tell us what his usual] process is, but as we need to adapt that for the needs of [our] education, we did that. He has been incredibly flexible about running with the flow here.
JEK: How has it been working with Rob Morgan?
 JP: It's been wonderful. He is like Henry. He is absolutely open to every idea. The thing I enjoyed about Rob was that—Henry sent him an e-mail saying these are the names of the Maxfield Parrish paintings we were looking at. And he jumped right in. I have never been to a first production conference where he probably had six or eight sketches that he had done. I had never seen a set designer do that. I really enjoyed the way he started exploring the options. He was the first one to [tell us when he didn't like things.] Nothing was sacred to him. They were all just options he that he was presenting. I think it's sometimes more difficult for a set designer or costume designer to work that way than maybe it is for a lighting designer, especially that early in the process. It was really exciting to see someone respond so quickly to all the feedback that Henry or anyone else would give him. On top of that in terms of technical needs…he would redraft something to incorporate what I asked for or what other people asked for. He was incredibly creative but incredibly flexible at the same time. And he was very forthcoming in everything that he did. As soon as a new set of sketches or a rendering was complete, it would be out on e-mail that same day. We'd respond to it. Later that day he'd have changes or comments. Even though he was on the other side of the country the level of communication we had was [like having him] in the building.
JEK: Is there anything more about this production that you would like [people] to know?
JP: There have been a couple of technical aspects that have been very challenging for me—probably everyone on the production—how do you build a ten foot diameter moon box? No one's done that before. There's no one to call. There's no book to look it up in. How do make it bright enough without catching fire or have it made out of materials that are affordable? So there've been a lot of fairly small challenges, but as they compound themselves over the course of a whole production this has ended up being one of the more technically challenging approaches that I have taken. It is the most technically challenging production I have done here in terms of the front-end preparation for it.
JEK: How have you grown as a designer at Indiana University? What got you here?
 JP: My visual aesthetic, the things that I find interesting about light, possibly to some people's chagrin, have not changed. But what has changed is where before I was working on some level of intuition or a hope and a prayer, what I have really learned to do in this program is: How do you lay it out on paper? How are you sure that the positioning of that instrument is going to work? How are you sure that those colors are going to do what you are thinking they will? [That] was a really big leap for me…I have gained the skill set of being able to outline everything on paper and be able to deliver a specific product. Now I know what it will look like before I have built the cue. I have in my brain a snapshot of every moment of the play. Then building the cues is a matter of “Boom, there it is.”
JEK: How have the technological approaches that Rob Shakespeare teaches helped you?
JP: They offer a means of quickly and accurately checking an idea without hanging 200 instruments and finding out the hard way. IU is unique in terms of the way that accurate technology is being used and taught here. Rob's background in physics has been incredibly helpful to me, because he brings a level of understanding to the medium that is instinctual to a lot of lighting designers, but he is able to explain why. He is able to say, “I know you think that is what will happen, but it won't because…” He has that background and understanding. Rob is able to make the connection [between wanting to know how it will look and being able to explain how to achieve it], because he knows the engineering and the math behind it.
JEK: What happens next?
JP: Get a job! My long term career goal would be to live out of a suitcase and work in as many places as I can across the country. The reality is that that's getting harder to do. Fewer designers are doing more of the work. In the short term, I hope is that I can move back to the Salt Lake City area and get a real job, hopefully in the theatre, and use that as a base while I re-establish my freelancing in the valley. I had a growing career as a freelance designer before I came here. Now I need to re-establish it.
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