“Mamma Mia!”, the Broadway musical and film adaptation, set in the Greek Isles and featuring the music of 70s Swedish pop band ABBA, is set to take the stage at Carroll Senior High this week. The show is coming to life with the magic of paint, wood and flowers with the help of Carroll Theatre and floral design students.
“When you see a ‘Mamma Mia!’ set, it’s just white and blue, but we’re trying to bring in a lot more pastel colors and more red colors to the set,” costume crew head and senior Nikki Fiore said. “A little more purple.”
Fiore took inspiration from Greek architecture and the 2000s, so the costumes for “Mamma Mia!” feature a more colorful design compared to the traditional costumes and sets of the original show, which drew more inspiration from the 70s.
“Our design team of about six people started thinking about this before the school year even ended,” Fiore said.
One display of color is shown in a pair of hand-painted flower overalls, the first outfit for the character Donna, played by senior Carol Cortezze.
“I painted each individual flower,” costume crew member and sophomore Jolie Adams said. “It took me a really long time because they are very detailed.”
Theatre Tech is taking a new view of the world of “Mamma Mia!”, but they are not doing it alone. They are collaborating with floral design students this year.
“We have been doing some collaboration with the theatre for the last few shows, and we had so much fun doing that that this year we’re going to be helping with set design again,” floral design teacher Ms. Sarah Van Sice said.
For the set, floral design will be using silk flowers to make planters, garland and window boxes, focusing on the colors of orange and pink with blue and yellow accents.
“Flowers are a very feminine and pretty object, and a lot of the story revolves around two women and their decisions in their lives,” Adams said. “Donna’s a very flowery person. She’s very cheerful, bright and colorful.”
With the creation of these large set elements, the issue of size and weight poses a challenge to floral design and the theatre tech crew.
“Weight is very important, especially when you’re doing set design, because a lot of times you have to make things able to be moved around on the set during the actual play itself, and so it needs to be light and easy to maneuver,” Van Sice said.
To accomplish this, floral design plans to work with foam, a very light and easy mobile material, to create the structural parts of the set pieces.
“Working through challenges is part of what’s really fun for my students to learn about,” Van Sice said. “It’s how they take their design knowledge and apply it to a kind of real-world scenario.”
“Mamma Mia!” performances are set for Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, Sept. 18-20 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Carroll Senior High auditorium. Tickets are available for purchase at the DragonDrama.net.
