Little Women: The Musical

Little Women: The Musical

Plymouth State University
February 2022
Written by Allan Knee, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein
Music by Jason Howland
Directed by Jessie Chapman
Costume design by Danee Gosselin and Ethan Thompson
Technical Director: Bob Bruemmer

Scenic design, lighting design, and projections by Matt Kizer

Posted on by Kizer
Still Photos by Mark Tulk
This digital rendering shows the essential concept. Director Jessie Chapman requested a strong, symbolic presence of the original written work on the stage. We decided that the music in the show needed to be featured, as well as our very proud collaborative relationship between our music and theatre programs at Plymouth State. Though the space includes an orchestra pit, we placed the musicians in full sight in the center of the playing space and performed the musical all around them.
In this digital rendering, we see a more complete representation of the orchestra. Upstage, we see the physical lighthouse that was built for the Cape Code beach setting. The stagecraft included balanced mixtures of physical scenery, projected scenery, and environmental lighting choices.

Many moments and settings are represented in the gallery below. All photos in this gallery are by Mark Tulk.
For several reasons, we moved the grandfather clock from the staircase landing to a position stage-right near the bookcase. We chose to go from two rugs to one painted rug, and then none. The space worked well without the rugs and was less specific for so many different settings.

Jo and Beth: “Some Things Are Meant to Be”
Jo and Laurie sit on a trunk in Jo’s attic.
Jo recites her opera in the Kirk boarding house as fantasy characters act it out.
Professor Bhaer and Mrs. Kirk listen as Jo recounts her opera and her visit to a newspaper seeking employment.
Jo, Professor Bhaer, and Mrs. Kirk
We maintained a static furniture arrangement regardless of setting. Here, a period view of New York City is shown.
The lighthouse was a physical, scale model of Nobska Point Light on Cape Cod. The animated view behind it was projected.
Beth’s piano had an applied skin and was painted to look old and stripped. We pushed wedges into the strings internally to throw off its tuning on selected keys.
Digital rendering. Jo is reading her opera aloud.
Rendering: “A glorious atrium.”
Rendering: Mrs. Kirk’s boarding house in New York City
Rendering: the beach on Cape Cod
Rendering: Aunt March’s Stately Manor
The facings of the platforms were deliberately faced to mimic aged attic walls present in New England buildings from the period. We wrote text from Alcott’s book on the walls using her handwriting. Alcott’s handwriting leaned distinctly left in her later life, due to a hand injury.
The lighting design relied heavily on traditional area lighting with extensive use of textures and dappled lighting, much like a Renoir painting. We did not use followspots, nor did we make visible use of moving lights within the production.