ABOUT THE ARTIST WHO HAS GOT IT

30.07.2017

The participants and the creative team of the project are working hard to
produce the musical. The choreography parts are staged and sharpened in the big rehearsal hall; the producer with
the kids are repeating their parts in the Chill Out Hall; the vocalists are singing
their parts in the special hall. But all of this is not enough to produce the
performance. The picture of the stage should comply with the idea of
scriptwriter; to imagine and create the decorations and to select the stage
prop. All these are included in the specific duties of the theatre designer
Andrew Shyaev.

Andrey is a graduate
of  Moscow Art Theatre School.
Despite the fact that he graduated from the School last year only he has a lot
of theatre projects in his portfolio. There are short films of Mihalkov’s film
Academy, plastic performance in partnership of Egor Drouzhinin, and various
plays in Krasnoyarsk Drama Theatre and in Saint Petersburg Comedy Theatre after
Akimov. He is the first time in the NucKids project.

About the specific features
of work during the NucKids project

Even
before our coming to Saint Petersburg I realised that thete would be a lot of
work there. You need to do everything by yourself only ; to work at the same
time as a theatre designer, as a stage crew, and as a props man. Usually when I
work as a theatre designer  I can  think about the performance only, about the
final result. And I don’t do any phisical job. But here you should
make the decorations and imagine at the same time how does it looks like in a
whole picture. In general as for me the NucKids project was a real venture from the very beginning. To tell the truth it
is unreal to stage the musical performance with the unprofessional actors in 20
days.

I can admit that I began to
work cautiously
. But it is worth it! It is like a creative challenge to me as an art director
because such projects do not happened frequently. Secondly it is a possibility
to show the children what is the theatre.

Our musical is about young ordinary moskovites. How will
that impact on the  decorations? What
they will look like?

The musical is about Moscow.
I had an aim to show the nowadays capital as it seen by the morden inhabitans.
So I paid the particular attention to the construction fencing. Because Moscow
now is like one huge construction. And our constructional fencing makes clear
that the show takes place in nowadays. If you come to our capital you can see
that it is invaded by the blue-green fences and the constructional works are
conducted everywhere. And all this is included in the text. When our producer
and both the script author was writing a play he wrote that the similar
constructions should be on the stage. I simply found the most plain and
original method to live it out.

But anyway the clue part of
our artistic image is video footage. The main part focuses on Moscow. The
footages will be not static but live. Even before the project started we were
filming the beautiful views of Moscow. For example, one of the pictures we
filmed in the Gorky Park so you will be able to see it in our performance. The
plain screen in the theatre can impress nobody. It is boring to put on the
screen an ordinary motionless picture of the park or even of the Red Square. We
decided to play with it. Hope the spectaculars will like the result.

  What is the specific feature of decorations
production on the project?

We fased the aim to make the
artictic composition in a tour version. Because one case you play the musical
on one stage and you can focus on it the other case you have 5 tours and 6
different stages. From the beginning   we
are not be able to make the huge and monumental decorations. We have another
conditions and another terms of production. That is why the screen is our
salvation. It is moved simply, is managed simply and looks quite elegant. And
all the additions in the form of constructional fences are dismantled easily
and there won’t be any problem while transportations.

What was the most difficult element to produce the decoration?
Was it?

There was such an element.
There is a scene in our performance where the main character is racing in the
sleigh through the snowstorm. During the musical number the dancers jump into
the slei gh and the main character should
revolve and look around. Max our choreographer made the construction from 5 chairs
and staged the scene. But it took me no less than 5 days to make the sleigh. I
worked on them more then on all the fences. First of all the sleigh should be
nice because it is the main element of the scene decoration. Secondly the
sleigh should have the sophisticated mechanism. It should be unified
installations with the removable platform. To produce the sleigh I should even
make the drawing. Anyway it was the most difficult decorations to produce.

The decorations are difficult in production. You have
a lot of work, you spend all days long in your workshop.
But the musical
«Just summer rain» will be showed 9 times only. And then all the participants
will be gone, and all the
decorations will be brought to the storage. Do not you understand that? What all this was about?

For
the children. We all are working here for the children. The main goal of the
“NucKids project” to show to the children from the hinterland what the real
theatre is. And we the participants of the creative group are making all the
best their practice become more comprehensive and vivid. It is a cool practice
because after participation in the project it will be easier for the kids to
say that theatre is what I need or it is better to find myself in another
field.

Yes
we have a task to produce the performance that should meet the modern standards
and that would be not ashamed to show it to the sophisticated spectaculars. But
the main point is to tell children about theatre and to load them with their
heads into the production proses. That is why I do not feel my work will be in
vain. I like to be involved in such a project.

A QUICK WHIZ

The favorite book and writer:

«Urfin Juice and his wooden soldiers»

The favorite film:

«Only old men are going to battle», dir.by Leonid
Bykov

«The dark knight»,dir. by Christopher Nolan

«Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels», dir. by Guy
Ritchie

NucKids in
three words:

In treasure hunt.

Leo Souslov,

Specially for nuckids.ru