North Park University School of Music, Art and Theatre
Windy City Playhouse, Chicago, IL
May 1-3, 2025

Conductor- Tom Zelle
Stage Director- George Cederquist
Scenic Designer- Audrey R Tieman
Costume Designer- Stephanie Cluggish
Lighting Designer- David Goodman-Edberg

Design Statement

Murder on the Titanic is a murder mystery opera retelling of the Titanic disaster, highlighting the tensions between social classes and society’s relationship with the environment. My design embraced the well known ending of the Titanic, setting it in the debris field of the shipwreck. To highlight how the material signs of social class are meaningless in the face of true disaster. we begin the show with every furniture piece onstage, and remove them until the stage is clear for the “sinking”. I designed a “status quo element” of a diagonal ceiling drape that defined the space pre-sinking, and was lowered to the deck during the sinking, creating a new, unnervingly empty, status quo for both the audience and characters.