On October 4, St. Ambrose opened their first main-stage production of the 2019-20 season: Big Fish by John August and Andrew Lippa.
There is a lot that goes into a big musical that the audience does not get to see. Guest director Jay Edelnant, PhD gave an insight on how he created his image for this production.
"My biggest inspiration for this show was the novel because author Daniel Wallace is very specific about what things look like. He can pretty much describe anything he wants," the Professor Emeritius Edelnant said. "The novel has a great amount of imagery that was also reflected in the film Big Fish. Then, Tim Burton adds his Beetlejuice vision of what things look like, so things get pushed in the film in a way that you cannot do in the musical."
Big Fish focuses on the relationship between a father and son.
"The father and son theme was one of the biggest draws to this show for me," Edelnant said.
This musical is also very appropriate for a university to do because of the age of the characters and lack of overwhelming dance numbers.
"The most exciting part about directing this production is working with a group of people I haven't worked with before," Edelnant said.
Once the director has an image of what he/she wants the show to look like, the set designer brings that image to life. This production of Big Fish featured a different type of special effects that has never been done before on the SAU stage!
"We purchased projections from a company that will be the background for the show, and so the design is sort of around these images," said Kris Eitrheim, SAU set designer for Big Fish.
There are many challenges as the set designer, and especially with this production, they don't get any easier.
"The biggest challenge in this show is the fact that we have to match the look in the projections," Eitrheim said.
One aspect Eitrheim is enjoying about his role in this production is his interaction with the students and working with a new director.
Big Fish performed in the Allaert Auditorium Oct. 4-7.
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