Caligari: Alaska

Kade Mendelowitz

Kade Mendelowitz is the Lighting Designer and Technical Director for Theatre UAF, where he is a Professor & department head. Originally from New York, this award-winning designer has worked with most production groups in town. Kade has authored two interactive titles on sale through Amazon.com, and produced a third through Multimakers, a multimedia design company. He invites you to learn more about his his work by visiting his web site at: www.TheatricalDesign.com/kade

Set and lighting designer Kade Mendelowitz says

I called this portion the “city” – I felt it was important to have a way for the towns people to be searching for either Caligari or Cesare without them being able to “see” them; kind of like a comedy of errors… Anatoly’s early idea was that this is a comedy about horror.

The general shape of the buildings were inspired by the movie (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).  The strong angular shapes which were painted on the floor and walls were to avoke the feeling of the classic Film Noir / German Expressionistic style of the movie.  Lighting in the Theatre doesn’t work the same way as on film.  You can’t get blacks in ‘live’ theatre the way you can in film.  Shadows get some filled-in bounce; so I wanted the triangles painted on the set reminiscent of long shadows being thrown.

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Production Meeting

Production Meeting
Left: Kade Mendelowitz (Set and Lighting Designer), Anatoly Antohin (Director)
Photo by Raphaela Statcheter (Dramaturge).
February 26, 2009

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