By Norma Hopcraft
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During Covid I moved to Rochester, NY, to be near family. Despite the family connection, I didn't feel much at home in Rochester until recently, when I started going to theater. It's changed my feeling about living here!
There are more than 20 theater companies in this small city! Plays cost much less to see here than in NYC.
Recently I saw A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.
I'm writing a novel about a set designer, and the set for this local production intrigued me, so I decided to interview the person who designed this set.
Brodie McPherson is much in demand in Rochester and the region around it. He is busy year-round and barely managed to carve out an hour for my interview.
When I complimented the set design -- the gauzy curtain he'd put around Stella and Stanley's bed, a section of wall covered in copper panels that almost but not quite reflected the actors, the marital bed covered in copper-colored sheets, very rumpled -- Brodie replied in words that I could say about myself.
"I love a story, love design, love communicating with an audience. I love to take that swing for emotion, for the theme."
I asked him about the difficulty that set designers, and artists in general, sometimes encounter in getting their ideas to come to fruition.
"What do you do when you're frustrated with how the set is, or isn't, coming together?"
"I do a lot of pacing," Brodie said, "looking at it, walking away, chilling out, then coming back to it. It's really helpful. When you spent so long building something, you get so laser focused. If you come back with a different solution, a fresh perspective, it usually works better. When it's not working, I say, 'I'll go home. It's not today's problem.'"
I've found this approach works with writing novels too. I take a break, I re-envision, I try not to criticize myself but to relax and trust my Higher Power that an idea will come along. And it always does!
How about you? What do you do when your work is stuck, when it isn't going right? Comment below!
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