Outdoor Theaters for the COVID-19 Era
Warren Ashworth challenged undergraduate students in his Contract Design I course to take part in a design charrette and develop an idea for an outdoor theater space that would let performers connect safely with audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Says Ashworth, “The word charrette has come to mean a project done on a very short deadline.” He gave the students only one week, and the designs were wildly inventive. Sean Desmond, Liraz Dror, and Olivia Kane set their theater in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park of Salt Flat, Texas, and based their design on the spiral shape of a fossil. Maayan Adin, Claire Burke, and Lan Do envisioned their theater on Tunitas Creek Beach in Half Moon Cay, California, and created a metallic wave rising over the stage, set against the seating, which morphs into a sandy landscape (pictured here). Isabella Eastham, Kaethe Fink, and Diana Lawson imagined a “Theater by the Sea” on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.
For a deeper dive into the project, check out the this article published on the NYSID blog.