DESIGN ?

Hi...

I'm Ciaran and I'm a new addition to the Victor & Gord family... I had a one night fling with the V&G machine back in the earliest stage during the Project Brand New incarnation and a minor flirtation when Victor & Gord, Ali & Michael played on a floor designed by me during Queer Notions.  But this time around I'm involved in a more structured way as part of the team.

My role is as designer, which has a very loose definition in terms of a show like Victor & Gord.  Basically what I am doing is helping to shape the where and how Una stages things.

For me as a designer for theatre, I feel it's always important to keep focused on what the show is trying to say, the story that we are trying to tell.  With Victor & Gord this is very important as it is real lives told by real people live on stage, nothing more and nothing less.  In the process we have considered many options but as the days have ticked by and as the show began to take shape again following development, I am again concentrating on the show as simply Victor & Gord and of course Jay too and their stories.  That is where the power of the show in its previous incarnations.

In writing this blog post I thought about stories and reading books when I was younger.  Particularly the stories of Roald Dahl which are so vividly told through the words but I also remember the illustrations by Quentin Blake that accompanied them - picking out various descriptions and I suppose physicalising them.  So in a way, what I suppose I am doing here with V&G, is helping to illustrate the stories.  Now while I am not drawing it out as clearly like the Quentin Blake illustrations, I hope that I can help to focus you, the audience's attention on things and also with the videos from Alan Early we can highlight and help you to visualise and further engage with the guys stories, in a subtle and unobtrusive way.

Come along and see!