Jeremy Knight
theatrical projection design and videography
 


Howards End, America

Music by Allen Shearer, libretto by Claudia Stevens, based on the novel by E. M. Forster. Stage direction and set design by Philip Lowery, conducted by Mary Chun, lighting design by David Robertson, costume design by Marina Polakoff. Produced by Earplay in partnership with RealOpera at Z Space, San Francisco, February, 2019.


Four projectors supplied a succession of indoor and outdoor backdrops. A large rear-projection screen was fed by the house projector; a 4500-lumen projector placed images on an 8'-square screen mounted on a rotating platform downstage-right; a 3200-lumen short-throw projector placed images on an upstage-center 8' x 12' screen with an 8'-square slide-out panel; and another short-throw projector lit a 16' x 12' triangular cloth screen mounted stage-left above the orchestra. The placement of the large rotating platform and movable door units made placement of the front projectors particularly challenging.

Stevens's libretto moved the action from early 20th-century England to Boston in the 1950s. Images of Boston Symphony Hall and Boston Common appeared in the projections, along with buildings and automobiles from the period.


The weekend's production, presented by Earplay, boasts a first-rate cast of fine local singers... on an ingeniously fluid set supplemented by Jeremy Knight's video projections.
     —Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

Projection Designer and Videographer Jeremy Knight devised a marvelous series of both color and black and white projections and in his set box five screens brilliantly juxtaposed indoors and outdoors. These included Howards End, indoors and out, complete with tree and brick, and the abandoned house covered with sheets, the sea, downtown Boston and Beacon Hill, the Boston Common and the Swan Boats in the Boston Public Garden. These iconic sites came and went un­obtrusively, amplifying more than mere atmosphere. Again, the narrative milieu drove us scene by scene, but never were the visuals intrusive or simply decorative. They were so smoothly done that as we shifted from scene to scene, we moved as in a dance, the new space unfolding almost organically from the last...

The integration of the projections with text and tone was masterful. Rarely does the degree and quality of the projections themselves so ratify their use. Further, the choices of the particular subjects was more than apt. The particularity of place—garden, bedroom, streets—matched idea and text exceptionally well.
     —Lois Silverstein, OperaWire





Performance photographs by Jeremy Knight















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