Faced with planning a series of complicated scenic transitions involving set pieces the size and weight of a city bus, I worked with the production team at the Park Avenue Armory to develop a previzualization tool. This tool allowed the productions’ choreographer, composer, director and set designer to align their expectations and desires for key transition moments within this play. Once set, this tool helped train the 6 stagehands to operate heavy-lift electric tuggers to move these set pieces safely and in keeping with the choreographic intentions of the creative team.

This then came to be described in a NYTimes review as follows: “Paul Steinberg’s set consists mostly of huge plywood-paneled blocks, as if a giant’s playthings. Lit gorgeously by Mimi Jordan Sherin, they slide and twirl about the huge space in various combinations that fascinate and appall the eye, like de Chirico paintings come to life.”

This tool was designed in Unity with a WebGL build, using custom scripting to support the specific specifications of the tuggers with respect to acceleration, deceleration and speed, with rendering as a 2D scale drawing and 3D audience view from multiple points within the seating bank.