For my specialization project, I collaborated with Shadwell Opera director Jack Furness to produce a promenade adaptation of the RSC’s Wizard of Oz – well-loved, well-known and laden with queer analogy, we responded to a brief to develop a design concept that reimagines the show through an adult lens and a queer perspective, integrating an adjacent and comprehensive exploration of 1920s-30s culture and design in American society, including the Pansy Craze and its drag events. This was a wonderfully cathartic experience for me, and I was able to undergo a full exploration of my favourite era of design. The design focus of this project was creating a series of costumes set against an immersive set design that would follow through the rooms of The Vaults in Waterloo.

For the immersion to work to it’s full potential in this space, I felt that creating a set built around the personification of the story’s environments would serve the narrative best - as a result of this, in some scenes, the ensemble manifests as an extension of the set, for example the Cornfield being a mass of moving figures to create dynamicism in the performance.