(Yana Paskova/ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST ) - UMD Professor Jared Mezzocchi advises writer and performer Sam Peterson (not seen) on new video projection techniques for Peterson's play F to M to Octopus, at the 3LD Art and Technology Center in Manhattan, NY.
The Ghost in “Hamlet” was once a simple creation: a white sheet or some smoke was enough to depict a dead king. The audience, of course, cooperated with these primitive displays, since imagination was required of theatergoers.
But if 20th-century technology — aviation, space travel, doomsday bombs — conquered the extremes of our own universe, modern science is more concerned with the virtual world, weaving in and out of daily life without drawing attention to itself. That is the challenge that Jared Mezzocchi, a video projection designer, confronts every time he looks at a stage. How does one infuse elements of this virtual world into the age-old art form that we call “live” theater?
(Yana Paskova/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) - UMD Professor Jared Mezzocchi advises video designer Laura Melosh and writer and performer Sam Peterson (not seen) on new video projection techniques for Peterson's play F to M to Octopus, at the 3LD Art and Technology Center in Manhattan, NY.
“I’m always trying to find ways that video can become more alive in the space and breathe with the storytelling,” Mezzocchi, 27, says of his prerecorded videos and projected graphics that are popping up in theaters around Washington.
Decades ago, when projections were used sparingly in theater, they were largely static backdrops. Now, a skilled technician with a laptop and some software can manipulate graphics to interact with the actors on stage. Projected reels can transport audiences into a wrestling arena, as they did in Woolly Mammoth’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” Actors can climb mountains, speed through outer space, all while never leaving the ground in “A Trip to the Moon” at Synetic Theater. The projections are not static settings but moving elements of the stage, managed by a man or woman in a sound booth. And as community and professional theater budgets drop and smartphones become de rigueur, projection design is becoming more common in theaters.
“In the past, you had groups or theaters that were known for their technological accessibility. Now it’s everywhere,” Mezzocchi said. “That is an important point: The technologists and the dramaturges need to come together and decide when and how to use it.”
This emerging field of stagecraft is getting Mezzocchi much attention. In September, he moved to Washington from New York City to begin teaching projection design at the University of Maryland, one of the few schools that offers coursework in the emerging art form. He has just finished teaching his first semester. In October, Mezzocchi won a Princess Grace Award for theater from the Princess Grace Foundation; he was the first theater artist to win for video projection.
Students at the University of Maryland are clamoring to learn this behind-the-scenes art form. Mezzocchi is teaching undergraduate and graduate students to incorporate video projection into their own theatrical productions. He’s also demonstrating his know-how on campuses across the region. On Jan. 18, Mezzocchi and writer-director Christine Evans will do a reading of her play “You Are Dead. You Are Here,” a work that features interactive graphics from “Virtual Iraq,” a virtual reality program used by the Department of Defense to treat soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The play underscores one reason video projections are on the rise: New plays set in modern times incorporate technologies that didn’t exist five years ago. Now, for the sake of realism, directors and actors are bringing the virtual to the stage.
Founded in 2006 by Mirenka Cechova and Radim Vizvary, Tantehorse is a physical mime theatre company based in the Czech Republic. The black comedy, “Dante: Light in a Darkness” is part of Tantehorse’s “Dark Trilogy.”
Preview of “Eveningland,” a collaborative work by D.C.-based contemporary dance company Christopher K. Morgan & Artists and New York’s Skybetter and Associates.
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