How I Learned to Drive

ECU/Loessin Playhouse - Spring 2002

The stage directions in the script for How I Learned to Drive indicate a number of colorful road signs such as “Sharp Curve” and “Stop Ahead,” scattered or projected throughout the production. These signs can certainly resonate with the production; however our production took a different direction. How I Learned to Drive tells a story involving incest and pedophilia with a theatrical, yet disconnected and almost clinical voice.

It is this voice that provided the driving force for the lighting design. The lighting achieved a decidedly theatrical look without the use of any of the cuteness found in rich color or projections. Just as surgeons need to distance themselves just a bit if they are to cut into a living body, the production team came to believe that the audience could benefit from a little distance from this intense and potentially disturbing story. Throughout the design phase, color and projections were occasional temptations, but in the end they always proved to shatter the delicate distance which served our production so well.

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Introduction to the Play

Driving Lesson

Photo Session

Peck Admiring His Subject

The Introduction of Peck

Moving On