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A CONVERSATION WITH SCENIC DESIGNER ROBERT MARK MORGAN
Saturday, February 10, Director of Audience Development John Edward Kinzer sat down with Twelfth Night guest scenic designer Robert Mark Morgan to talk about the process of design. What follows is most of that lively conversation.
John Edward Kinzer: What brings you to set design? What was that journey? Where did you start with set design?
 Robert Mark Morgan: I guess I started in high school, really. I have always been interested in theatre, and I kind of got hooked on it in high school. I worked my way through as a carpenter, then as a painter, and then as an assistant. In only really the last 5 years have I had been designing strictly on my own, I have always had small projects while I had a regular job at a theatre company. I was always either an ATD of some sort, or an associate designer of some sort. But that is the reality of theatre is that you have to have that job that pulls in the benefits, to get the things you need to stay alive, and then you can do your passion on nights and weekends.
I was on staff at the Denver Center Theatre Company for 3 ½ years roughly, and I designed shows there, and then Donovan Marley who was the artistic director at the time, left and that was sort of the impetus for me to go entirely freelance. And so far that has worked out well. Knock on wood.
JEK: What would you want to tell students about working as a professional freelance designer, and what they need to do to prepare for that life?
RMM: I’d say, just take all the opportunities you can. It is a tough life. But I have always really found myself, even as a carpenter, learning from the drawings we were getting to build from. I learned [what] I needed to provide the people on that end of the drawing spectrum. It [is such a] collaborative art from that if you get to know the people that are putting your ideas on stage, they put their passion into it for you, and that makes all the difference. So I guess I always took the opportunities that I could, and I was very lucky in that I had the chance to encounter good people, and I learned from very good companies like Portland Center Stage, and Denver Center Theatre Company. And being on staff at those companies not only taught me how to do it, but do it well, and bump into and work with and absorb knowledge from designers that were coming in and that I was assisting. It’s like blacksmithing in a way. It’s a craft that you hand down. There is only so much I think you can learn from a textbook. You learn from doing, and making mistakes. I find school is a great place for me to experiment and not have a lot on the line, like ticket sales, and stuff like that. I mean, ticket sales are important, but I could play with ideas and it was my place to screw up. And I guess screw ups in real life have such bigger ramifications to them.
From another interview with Mike Lawler for his upcoming book Careers in Technical Theater, to be published in July 2007 by Watson-Guptill Publications.:
What would your advice be to a kid in high school who wants to pursue theatrical design?
I'd stress the importance of developing the skills necessary first to be a skilled designer. Hand sketching, drafting, painting, etc. are all very, very necessary skills for a designer to have in his/her "toolbox". Without them, the designer is an artist who possesses ideas that he/she can't convey. In that form, those ideas are worthless. In addition, skills will make you more employable as you journey towards a place where you can make the leap to being a full-time designer. For years, I had jobs as a technician, carpenter, welder, or painter where I was "moonlighting" as a designer. One MUST be able to make a living.
JEK: It’s about the freedom to fail.
RMM: I was just telling the students about a design teacher that I had in undergrad, who really busted my chops, and really taught me a lot by being mildly abusive but he made such clear points. For instance, I was just telling the students downstairs, I had a rendering I spent all night doing, then he came in class the next day, and I am getting ready to present it, and he said “go wash that off in the craft shop sink,” and I thought, “what? I just spent all night on this!” and he made me wash it off. And it was the best rendering I ever did. , it was the best one. You just don’t have that kind of time in the real world. You still need to be able to function. Sleep is good! I learned a lot in school, but, being freelance, there is a lot more juggling of projects. I have things that I am working on now that I do on the plane, or Motel 6, or wherever. It’s just how it works.
JEK: First in the general sense, then more specifically about Twelfth Night, how would you describe your approach to set design?
 RMM: It is something that is verbally hard to talk about only because it is such a visual language. My process has a lot to do with research. And even before I talk to a director I will collect research from a number of different sources, not just internet, not just magazines, but a bunch of different sources, get it all together, scan it into the computer. I will letter each image. And these again are images that feel like the play to me. For instance, I emailed Henry lettered images. Each image that he pulled up on the computer were labeled A,B,C,D, and then he and I can talk over the phone...you get a visual language going. That’s how I get a real sense from him about what the set needs to feel like. That is so important. It is not just a bunch of elements; it has to feel like the energy of the play for him too. So he’d say, yeah, I really like the organic quality in this one, or the color of this one, or the tone of this one. [That kind of dialogue tells me] where we are headed. And then you go from there. I tell my students this [process consumes] 6 months of your life, start to finish. You don’t want to spend it with an ugly baby, you know, you want a pretty baby. You want to spend it with images and research that you like. So he responded to a lot of things that I responded to, and [that put us] on the same page. [Then I] started in with sketches and things like that. But I think the key is research. It’s the type of fuel that gets me through a project. Whenever I just don’t know what choice [to make] I’ll go back to the research. Maxfield Parrish is a perfect example of that.
JEK: Is there anything else that is specific about the Twelfth Night process that might be a little different or highlights what you just described?
 RMM: It is different in the sense that I have never worked with Henry. So it is a bit of an unknown when you work with somebody that you don’t normally work with. I have directors that I work with a lot, and after a while you get on a real almost non-verbal kind of sensibility with each other. But I enjoy doing both, directors I do know and don’t know, and that is what was different with Twelfth Night. I had only read about Henry at that point, but it has been a terrific experience. The research aspect is pretty typical for what I do for every show. I think more is better. It is almost like making stew, and certain images sort of bubble to the top, and he reacted strongly to a number of images, and then you [discover] what this design should feel like, and hopefully when we are done it still has that feel.
JEK: When I talked to lighting designer Jesse Portillo, he mentioned that he considered Maxfield Parrish, and showed Henry some images. Jesse felt empowered by being able to participate in the early concept work.
 RMM: I love how Jesse has worked on this show, and in general I just love collaboration. If I were an artist of any other kind, just a fine artist, or a painter, I wouldn’t have anybody to bounce ideas off of. And it’s the social, collaborative aspect to this art form that I constantly find myself loving, and also not loving about something non-collaborative. It is boring to me to not have anybody like Henry, or Jesse, to throw ideas at, and when Jesse throws ideas in it just gets better. The sum of our parts is always greater than what we can do individually.
The designers that I work with too, frequently, we [achieve a sort of] non-verbal [language]. Someone Jesse knows actually, it is such a small world, someone Jesse knows named Jessica. He knows her from Pioneer in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her husband, someone I went to graduate school with, and I had an incredible relationship as designers, he was a lighting guy, and I was a set designer, and he lit three or four of my shows that I did in grad school. And by the fourth show I would just look at him in the theatre and he would say, I’m working on it, and I didn’t even have to say a word. Entirely visual… that is when things get exciting. He had a very similar sensibility as [mine]. Lighting now is just such a huge component to set design, even when it comes to adding something as simple as haze, in my opinion that is somewhat scenic and lighting. It’s the same thing, but they are becoming so intertwined that it is really in your best interest as a set designer to really collaborate. Not saying costumes are not important!
JEK: [Let’s] throw sound into this mix…
RMM: A lot of plays that [are] tossed my way are very episodic, so they are all over the place. They take place at restaurants, there are phone calls, and there are homes and interiors and exteriors, I mean it’s all over the joint. So sound I think is more important for me, and I think a perfect example is a restaurant scene for a show I just did in Saint Louis, where I provided a table and chairs and had a flown hanging lamp, but other than that I couldn’t flesh out anymore of the restaurant. The sound designer added in a little bit of jazz, and some clinking glasses and dishes, and it just sets the location for the audience. It had to be clearly defined. Otherwise, it may have been interpreted as a dining room in the same house.
JEK: What are the challenges working long distance? In this case, you are deeply involved with painting, but you don’t get to watch your baby built. What is that like?
RMM: It is tough. I rely heavily on, in this case, [M.F.A. scenic design student] Tim Borden, and he is terrific. I mean, coming in at this point and time painting is, you might say, the icing on the cake, but he took care of building that cake, and baking that cake, and whatever analogy might be appropriate here. And every day he has been sending me an email update [about] where they are with the build, and in the cases of visual things he will send me digital pictures. I think that if this show is a success scenically, it’s to his credit. Because he really kept me in the loop as much as I could from a distance. It is frustrating sometimes, I think, oh if I were there, I could show him how to put this paper on, or whatever it might be. I relied heavily on him and still do. I mean, this is his talent, his ability to collaborate. I hope he is getting something out of it, because I feel very grateful for his talent. He has been terrific. And the other students as well, but Tim has been my point man, as you might say here. And Fred [Duer] is to an extent, overseeing what he is doing.
JEK: How did you connect with the IU Department of Theatre and Drama?
RMM: It is a very small world as you know. I work a lot with a director named David McClendon who spent time as Jack O’Brien’s assistant at the Globe, and Fred Duer was at the Globe when David was there. David now runs a theatre in Aspen, in a tent, and I have designed the last two seasons for him out in Aspen. We build the shows in Denver and they get trucked out to Aspen. The first summer we had a lighting designer out there named John Forbes who was in that same group of artists at the Globe. David was Jack’s assistant, and Fred worked in the design office, and John Forbes was also doing work at the Globe at the time. I think Fred was looking for a designer and talked to John Forbes, who teaches school in Vermont, and they all traced their roots back to San Diego, but John said, you should give Rob a call, and that’s how I met Fred. But Fred … and I joked to Fred about this in an email, that he has left bread crumbs for me to pick up. Because we have found a very similar path, I haven’t done as many film and television [projects] as he has, but in terms of our collaborations with the same people. An interesting twist, or you might say, a circular pattern to this whole thing is I am not designing in Aspen this summer, but Fred is. I called David up and I said, I would love to come to Aspen, I just have so much going on I can’t do it, and he asked, what would you think if I asked Fred Duer to do it? I said, “That would be perfect.” A summer in Aspen would be great, you know, he and Alan can go out there and have a great time.
JEK: Yeah, he has been really exciting for this department.
RMM: He is terrific! And just last night we were having dinner. You can tell, talking to a teacher, how much they love the students. And it is clear to me that Fred really loves doing it. And it goes above sort of the standard curriculum type stuff. He cares about everyone in an individual way.
JEK: What other projects are in the hopper?
RMM: Well, I am doing Much Ado at American Players in Spring Green, Wisconsin; it is a beautiful 1200 seat theatre outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Last summer was my first summer designing out there, and I am doing Much Ado About Nothing with a man named Ken Albers, who is an Ashland [Oregon] based actor/director. Henry knows him pretty well. And I am doing an in-home conservatory for a kind of artistic, eccentric couple in Newport Beach. This couple is building their dream home at age 70, so it is never too late. I am designing an Art Nouveau style conservatory in the style of an architect named Victor Horta. It will have a big glass dome, posts, etc, but, unlike a real conservatory, it is not exposed to the outside. The outside feeling will have to come from lighting. I have a colleague who is a principal for a company called First Circle and he is doing the lighting – and he’s the reason I’m doing the project as well. Again – collaboration. So I am doing Much Ado, and that, and two shows out in New Hampshire for a director that I have worked with before who just started his own theatre, called Seacoast Rep in Portsmouth. I am doing Damn Yankees, and West Side Story in [repertory].
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