The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Lead Designers Emma Satchell

Entry Description

This production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was performed outdoors and produced by Paraphrase Productions and The Forest Theater Guild. This musical depicts the adventures of Quasimodo and Esmerelda, two individuals shunned from society and grappling with their own humanity. Ultimately, it is a quest for love, hope, and forces the audience to ask: who is deserving of heaven’s light? The lighting design team wanted to embrace this concept of heaven’s light and use it (or its absence) to communicate with the audience the purity or wickedness of the characters onstage. There is an apparent hypocrisy in the the piece, as the holy man is fiendish, while the persecuted are held in heaven’s light. Each of the color choices for the piece were taken from medieval churches. Medieval depictions of hell were a strong color influence on the work for priest’s moments of unrighteousness, while the texture and palette of stained glass were used as a physical manifestation of heaven’s light.