The
Psychopomp
Stage

Role

I was the through line in this project, beginning to end, concept to performance. I conceived the world, designed and directed the build, managed the production schedule, and performed in the show that opened inside the theater I had just built. The structural timber frame was built by a collaborating production company. My scope was everything that gave it life: all surface elements, characters, textiles, lighting, and puppetry, designed and fabricated by my crew.

Process

A psychopomp is an ancient figure found across many world mythologies. A guide for the newly dead, escorting souls from the living world into whatever comes next. It takes no single form. It has appeared as a jackal, a raven, a horse, a god. The stage takes its name and its inspiration from that archetype; animals fused and stacked, their combined power borrowed to mark the threshold between worlds.

The primary challenge was that the theater needed to be transportable. The three dimensional cat and frog heads had to flat pack, load onto a truck, and remain lightweight enough to handle in the field. To develop a design that could be translated digitally for a CNC router, I created a cardboard maquette at one inch to one foot scale. Working at maquette scale in cardboard allows the design to stay tactile and free, where character and form are easier to find than they are on a screen. The maquette was also a fabrication prototype, its tape hinges foreshadowing the final construction method.

The design was inspired by origami. The fold is a design decision that has to survive the jump in scale. The challenge was translating that logic from paper to wood. When scaled up, upholstery tape and rivets replaced the fold itself, stitching panels together in a way that was visually clean, structurally sound, and still capable of packing flat.

All three dimensional elements, the snakes and the phoenix, began as hand drawn renderings and were made from foam carved by hand at scale. For the hundred reptilian scales that tile the proscenium walls, consistency was everything. Each scale needed to be painted uniformly and mounted at identical pitch to create a clean, three dimensional wall texture. A simple mounting jig ensured every piece anchored at the same angle. Each scale was spray painted and hand embellished before installation.

The textile elements were the finishing touches that brought elegance to the theater. No detail was left without time and attention. Inside each cat mouth lounge, custom drapery systems were hand sewn, billowing from the ceiling and wrapping all four walls in a continuous treatment. At the center of the ceiling, the drapery terminated into a hand cast plaster octopus medallion, inspired by the decorative ceiling mounts of Victorian interiors, with a disco ball hanging at its center to simulate the uvula of the cat. The lower proscenium drapery could not be designed until the theater existed. I brought my sewing machine to Oregon and constructed it on site, seated at the base of the stage. It was one of the last elements to go up. Each evening after a full day of building, the crew gathered to hand make yarn pom poms, a nightly ritual that was equal parts production necessity and team practice in a softer craft. The pom poms were sewn to the finished drapery, creating a fringe that gave the proscenium its final form. The drapery paired with the eyes already watching from the proscenium above gave the entire stage the unmistakable presence of a face.

The puppet

The theater itself is a giant puppet. Each cat's mouth opens into a side wing lounge accessible from the balcony. Inside each lounge is a set of bicycle handlebars attached to a wooden plate. From that plate hangs an articulated tongue. Seven coroplast segments plus three extended shields at the tip create a whip effect, modeled after the articulated toy snake everyone has held as a child. The hinge between each segment is a through bolted PVC pipe sandwiching luan eyeball discs as bearing surfaces. The eyeballs are simultaneously the decorative element and the mechanical joint. Gravity does the rest. The same physics that make the toy snake wave in your hand make the tongue wave at architectural scale.

When someone inside the lounge moves the handlebars, the tongue animates. When both tongues run simultaneously, the entire facade of the theater is in motion.

Outcome

This project asked for everything I had. I designed it, I built it, and when the lights came up I was the one on stage making strangers do ridiculous things.

The stories I create translate into design, installation, and live performance. At the Oregon Eclipse I was asked to do all three. Rooted in science fiction and driven by audience participation, the show was built on the same creative foundation as the stage itself. Blemen Latinkle, three breasted alien emcee from Planet Snarflac, is a character I have been developing across multiple installations. The performance is an alien themed game and variety show. It was written collaboratively with the cast and performed improvisationally.

The stage hit its mark. Creative directors and festival producers celebrated it as a genuine departure from anything they had seen before, performers loved working inside it, and audiences couldn't get enough of it. By every measure it was a success and a meaningful contribution.

What this project demonstrates