Blue Whale Variations
After losing her mother and relocating to a new house, Paula and her father Al struggle to navigate their grief while their neighbors Charlie and Andy adjust to their new home, all under the looming shadow of a mysterious Whale.
Utilizing sound, music, and environmental scenic and media installations, Blue Whale Variations is an investigation of the precariousness of identity and love, and our deep-seated need to construct meaning. Consisting of four characters, arranged into pairs, each scene of this show was prerecorded and placed into an application that allowed the audience to freely enter marked out areas on a GPS map to listen to the scenes in any order they chose to. At each GPS point was an installation relating to the scene in question, spanning across approximately two miles of the Iowa River in front of the University of Iowa's Theatre Building.
Installations ranged from parked cars to a broken living room set, to a table set in the middle of a field, to a series of vintage televisions to interactive media installations designed by Ann Kreitman, the large array of installations were all indicated through small three-dimensional houses lit light blue on the inside. Designed in collaboration with the University of Iowa’s Biology Technical department, these laser-cut cardboard houses were used as wayfinding devices to direct the audience toward installation scenes, and when combined with chalked house-motif arrows, allowed an audience to experience the show when not getting lost over the large performance area.
The project was a part of the University of Iowa's annual New Play Festival, a week of readings and four partially produced new works by University of Iowa graduating playwrights.
Playwright: Dakota Parobek
Venue: 27 Locations along the Iowa River
Date: May 2021
Director: Ann Kreitman
Stage Manager: Dylan Nicole Martin
Dramaturge: Robert Ascher
Installation and Costume Design: Kaelen Novak
Media Design: Ann Kreitmann
Sound Design: Dakota Parobek
