H: Could you please tell us what have you been up to lately?
W: Of course. I have been serving as the planner and stage designer of a stage play named Boom, which is being performed in public at the NuBox Theatre in New York from April, 28th to May, 23th. Please come and see it if you are interested.
H: Sounds interesting. Could you please tell us about this stage play in details?
W: No problem. This stage play is adapted from BOOM, which tells about the conflicts between a marine biologist and a scholar of journalism in laboratory and dormitory. Many accidents happened during their conflicts. In the form of comedy, the story seems to be jaunty. However, there hide lots of sadness and loneliness in the joy. The play has many subtleties in description, which are not intensive and therefore deserve much appreciation.
H: Sounds like it is suitable for this play to be performed in New York.
W: Yes, I think the play fits the living condition of city folks.
H: Could we please talk about your experience when preparing this stage play?
W: I learned a lot during this process because some details are unpredictable. For instance, there have been many mistakes when arranging the stage. Also, the time is pressing because we have not take account the limits of the actual field.
H: What do you consider as the most critical part when designing a stage?
W: I think empathy is the most important thing. The stage serves for the script. Therefore, we should understand the script first. Then we have to know the performance characters of each actor and the characters of each role, which are not easy things. I have tried for many times because I have never learned knowledge of lighting. So, to convey accurate messages to the audiences, we need countless attempts.
H: What are the similarities and differences between stage designing and the designing in other fields in you opinion?
W: The similarity lies in they all consider audiences as the most important part. The difference is that stage designing put script in its center, which makes it difficult to take itself as the starting point. We should consider the audiences constantly because audiences come from different fields and their age spans are large. Also, we should always ask different people for their ideas because the changing of perspectives can add more appeal to the story.
H: In my opinion, another similarity of designing is it expresses the love of live. Although it sounds ideal.
W: Ha ha, exactly. I think designers are more or less idealist.
H: Right.
W: There exist many contradictions in this play. Positive feelings and negative feelings coexist. And there is just narration of stories. Also ,the conflicts have been weakened in the stage performance. I think the performance accords with the living conditions of modern citizens, in which their negative feelings are depressive. People can hardly mediate the negative emotions under the frantic pace of modern life. We hope that the play can express positive emotions and that audiences can look at themselves and people who are similar with them in the third person perspective.
H: Yes, to put it simple, the play means to “give people some air”, which is very smart.
W: I think life experience is very important. If we want to make better design in any design field, we have to experience more in real life.
H: I can not agree more. I hope that we have the opportunity to cooperate with each other and no matter what our expression form is, we can make interesting collisions of thinking.
W: Of course. I look forward to cooperating with you to make fantastic works.
