About Me
- Hey there! My name is James Clark, and I’m a Junior at Stanford University majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in sustainable architecture and engineering. I love sketching up crazy ideas and figuring out how to bring them to life. You can check out a few of my projects below!
About the Show
My Role
- My involvement with Mary Poppins began in May of 2023 when the director, Liam Fay, and I connected because we each had the same dream: to see a production of Mary Poppins come to campus. After funding had been allocated and rights had been bought, I joined the team in December of 2023 as associate scenic designer. As such, I would be heading the magic of the show, including everything from Mary’s magic carpetbag to her final flight.
My Design Approach
- As I came to find out, many solutions for the magical elements were avaliable online. However, not all of them were up to the standards that I was hoping for, leading me to forging my own path through the design process. I optimized for unconventional solutions that would spark wonder in the hearts of adults and children alike.
Leadership in Theater
- A project of this scale does not get done alone. It relies on a multitude of contributors, each providing their own unique touch to the process. This was a fact that I had to acknowledge from the get-go in order to get anything done. The key here is maximizing the time during which people help you. On days that I had people come help, I would arrive 15-30 minutes early to set out tools and material, and create a clear outline of the task(s) to be completed so that folks could jump right in and start building. Under these circumstances, my priority switched from completing work to organizing people.
- Another thing that a project of this scale requires is a can-do attitude. Volunteering for jobs as needed and putting in the hours required to make the cogs of the theater machine turn is just part of the job. This resulted in me putting in around 40 build hours during the final two weeks before the show, making hardware store runs, fixing props, and joining run crew for the show (moving sets, cuing lights, triggering magical moments, etc.).
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Kitchen Table
- Initial Ideas
- In the “Spoonful of Sugar” scene, Robertson Ay (one of the Banks’ family servants) accidentally destroys the kitchen. Many productions of Mary Poppins have a table that falls apart and magically comes together again at the snap of Mary’s fingers. Many productions, however, had an awkwardly large tablecloth that reached the ground, clearly concealing some kind of mechanism. This was something I very much wanted to avoid, doing my best to tell the audience “there’s nothing up our sleeves!”.
- Early Planning
- Building
- Iterating
- When I first tested the table, it fell much too fast and split the wood attaching the hinged legs to the rest of the table. To fix this, I installed washers on the rope so that the table couldn’t fall more than a couple of feet out. Additionally, it was difficult to smoothly pull the table back into position. I decided to cut off a section of the base so that the legs could be pulled in smoothly.
- My table model with the actual table (and me)!
- On Stage
- Table falls at 40:07, and rises again at 42:52
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After several hours of building with the technical director, we had a table-looking form!
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Bedside Table
- Initial Ideas
- For this trick, I also wanted to let the audience know that there was nothing up our sleeve by having Mary place her bag on a bedside table that was open underneath (i.e. no obvious means of storing a five-foot-tall hat rack inside). The basic idea was to have the table against a wall, and people behind the wall pass it through a series of holes cut in the wall and table, passing it through each to get the various items to Mary.
- Early Planning
- Building
- The trickiest part of all of this was creating a trapdoor in the bottom of Mary’s iconic carpetbag. We only had one bag, and I had never had any exposure to cutting holes in nice bags (go figure). I made some test cuts, and then went for it. After an hour, I had a functioning trap door on the bottom of Mary’s bag.
- The actual bedside table ended up being made relatively quickly thanks to some scrap wood and a redesign. Rather than having a ramp on the inside of the table, I just left it open to give the magical items more maneuverability through the trap door in the bedside table. I also added a latch so that the trapdoor could only be opened when the stagehands were ready for it.
- Iterating
- Once we were actually able to practice with the table, we learned that some of the items would try to pull the bag away as they were pulled out. To fix this, I added clamps that would hold the bag in place as long as it was on the table.
- Additionally, thanks to our massive rotating sets, we decided that there were too many items to move and it would be best to drill the table into one of the rotating sets. This simplified the whole process quite a bit, making it much easier to make some magic!
- On Stage
- Set change at 13:15, magical items begin at 14:35
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I didn’t make many sketches for this table because, in all honesty, it was one of the most straightforward elements! The drawing on the bottom left depicts my vision for the mechanics of it, essentially punching a hole through one of the walls of the set, as well as through the back and top of the bedside table.
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Rolling Chimneys
- Initial Ideas
- I was given the design for the chimneys, and my task here was that of a head carpenter’s: figure out how to build an artist’s design without sacrificing creative intent or safety.
- Building
- At a moment’s notice, my buddies Chris Lann and John Luke Miller joined me at the woodshop to build these chimneys. Each chimney took one person around four hours to complete.
- Iterating
- On the smaller chimneys, we used steel wheels which ended up being incredibly loud. We did not fix this issue, as we did not have the wheels or time.
- On Stage
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Step in Time Lights
- Initial Ideas
- In the original Broadway production of Mary Poppins there is one clear standout number, and that is none other than the behemoth that is “Step-in-Time”. An eight minute long number full of perfectly synchronized tap dancing, special effects, and one of the crown jewels of the entire show: the moment when chimney sweep Bert tap dances upside down above the stage. Yes, you read that right. It is pure theater magic, and a memory that I hold very dear to my heart from seeing the touring production a decade ago. Every single time, the audience applauds like crazy. So… how the heck was a group of college kids supposed to dangle another college kid from the ceiling? The answer is, we don’t. We take a step back and look at what that moment is supposed to achieve: magic. I made it my goal to create such a magical moment that the audience would feel compelled to applaud, even if we didn’t have Bert tap dance upside down on the proscenium.
- Early on in the planning process, I had wanted to incorporate pixels (computer controllable lights) in the production somehow. But it wasn’t until two weeks before the show that the lighting designer and I got together and decided to pull the trigger. After that, it was off to the races.
- Making
- Making the pixels happen was truly a team effort between our actor, director, lighting designer, head electrician, and myself. Our plan was to outline the roofs of our massive 15-foot-tall and 50-foot-wide London skyline with pixel strips and, in an absolutely vital move, keep the lights a surprise. The vision was that Bert would slowly gain control of the city lights, sweeping his hand to the left, then to the right as the lights “woke up” to his movements. We filmed Bert’s choreography so that I could reference it throughout my programming.
- My approach to programming the lights involved going on runs while replaying the song on my phone over and over again, aiming to determine what colors were present, what the motion was, and how exactly the lights should “come alive”. Once I had an image in my head of what the moment should look like, I sketched color pallets and designs in Procreate and animated them in Premier Pro, being careful to time it up nicely with the reference video we shot for the choreography.
- Iterating
- After bringing the effects into MadMapper (a program that was brand new to me) and actually seeing how my designs performed on the lights, I decided to cut the less strict cues and use the programmer within the software for both ease and quality of effect.
- Additionally, because of a lack of staff and my desire for it to play out as envisioned, I decided to cue the lights live every show. This helped them stay on beat with the live orchestra.
- On Stage
- I mentioned earlier that my goal was to make people applaud. Well, take a look at this video and see for yourself if the team created a magical moment for the audience.
- Lights begin at 0:42.
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Additional Projects
- Kite
- At the beginning of Act II, Mary makes her grand entrance holding onto a kite flown by Jane and Michael Banks. An early vision I had for the show was to have the kite fly over the audience and use some misdirection to make Mary magically appear. Unfortunately, after testing this idea in front of the professionals, it got a hard “no” because of what could happen if the kite happened to hit a member of the audience. I suppose that’s fair.
- We did end up getting to fly a kite on stage though! I hid up on a catwalk in the rafters and held a fishing line attached to the back of the kite. For two out of the three performances, the kite garnered excited gasps and applause.
- Birdwoman
- “Feed the Birds” is an incredibly sentimental song in the Mary Poppins cannon. It is what made author P.L. Travers hand over the rights of her novel to Walt Disney to make the iconic film, and it was also one of Walt’s favorite songs. He would often have songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman play the song for him in his office. To this end, I wanted The Birdwoman to have a memorable moment as well. I envisioned a moment where the cloth of her tattered dress came alive like the birds and rose up all around her as the song swelled with emotion.
- This moment did make it into the show, but we unfortunately just did not have the time to get it right. I do hope that it inspired some magic, as well as pointed the audiences thoughts a bit towards the birdwoman for the rest of the show.
- Final Result
- Mary’s Flight
- A staple of most Mary Poppins productions is her flying, sometimes over the audience. Below are many sketches that I made depicting different methods of making Mary fly. While none of them panned out, they’re quite fun to look through!
- Final Result ADD
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Appreciative Reviews
- And as a cherry on top, audiences LOVED it. Check out these reviews from students and faculty.
- “Despite missing the flying Mary Poppins moment that is a staple of most Mary Poppins’ productions, the show dazzled its audience with several sleight-of-hand tricks that kept the story’s magic alive.”
- “The scene where Mary Poppins pulled out oversized items from her seemingly small carpet bag elicited gasps and applause. The clever staging of a kite flying gracefully across the stage brought a delightful outdoor freedom and joy into the auditorium, while showcasing the creative ingenuity behind the production. “
- “The scenic design and lighting, particularly during “Step in Time,” created a visual spectacle that complemented the performances. This production of “Mary Poppins” was not merely a show, but an immersive journey into a world where whimsy and childlike wonder reign supreme.”
- Full article here:
- Not only were these reviews a testament to the hundreds and hundreds of combined hours that went into the show from the director, cast, scenic team, audio team, lighting team, orchestra, and plethora of other people who helped, but it was also a testament to how transformative good design can be. It has the ability to enhance performances and immerse the audience further into the story. It allows everyone in the space to be caught up in the exact same moment, each experiencing it with the tint of their own perspective.
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Final Reflections
- What Worked Well
- The magical carpetbag, Step in Time lights, kite, and kitchen table were all very effective during the show. By no coincidence, each of these were labeled as priorities and had the proper amount of time and planning go into their creation.
- What I Learned
- One thing that I should’ve anticipated early on was just how busy life gets when you’re both a full time student and trying to put on a Broadway musical in seven weeks. Many many designs got cut due to the lack of time. A lot of this time crunch came about due to not having access to our funding for the first three weeks of the quarter, meaning we couldn’t buy wood/other materials or get started on the set.
- If I had another chance to work on Mary Poppins, there are a few things I would do differently:
- Ensure we have the most amount of time possible to design, build, and iterate.
- Create a specific schedule early on that details when and how everything will be built.
- Have a large build team that can be called upon as needed.
- Prototype, prototype, prototype! Everything I create needs to be durable, intuitive, and reliable.
- Factor in the time it takes for cast and crew to learn how to use the elements I created.
- Ambitious ideas are great, but simplification isn’t bad. Knowing which ideas would fall under “ambitious” versus “simple” is important so that I can be prepared for the hardships (and potential cutting) of the more ambitious ideas.
Conclusion
Theater and architecture are not always thought of in tandem, but I believe that some of the best architectural design has an awareness of both. As designers, we are directing our user through an experience or story. In theater, the user is our audience: a third-person observer being taken through a preconstructed narrative. In architectural design, the user is our visitors, and the exciting bit is that they are creating their own narrative in how they interact with our design. Every element is a discovery to our visitor, an expansion of the space’s space in their mind. Because they are living out their own story within our design, there cannot be anything obstructing the visitor from these discoveries. It has to be intuitive, and it has to make sense… except for when there’s magic involved. An element that is so surprising that the user can’t help but be solely in the moment, allowing their mind to rest and emotions run free. Because it is in that magic that we, as designers, make our impact. That magic creates memories to be returned to for years to come.
After our last show, a group of about 30 kids came up for photos and autographs with the actors, each especially enamored with Mary and Bert. Seeing this, I was thrown back to some of my first experiences with theater. At the time, I didn’t have any idea how many people were involved with the given production, but I knew that I had just been on a wonderful adventure and that I wanted more. Watching all the kids swarm Mary and Bert, it fully hit me that I had made it to the other side: I wasn’t experiencing that magic any more, I was creating it. And the magic I get to experience now isn’t that of being immersed in the story, but in the joy that I help create for others.
Who knows where this fusion of theater and architecture will take me, but I have a feeling that this is the beginning of one wild ride.