From the initial production meeting for Cabaret, it was clear to the design team we would be developing a production that required complexity, delicacy, and have the functionality to shift from a world of vibrancy and life to one of a colorless, strict regime. Following the theme set by the director Latrelle Bright, we endeavored to create a design that evoked the feeling of an impressionist painting with the color slowly being drained out, being left with nothing but the bare canvas. The design shaped into a complex series of squares, outlines and color, starting the show as a fun gimmick that traces throughout the story until all that is left are two actors in a stark, white, square downlight that shutters closed. With a moving light rig, fully rotational scenic units filled with wireless lights and a few dozen feet of LED tape, we had our hands full shaping the world of the play and programming all of these elements into the show.

Show Credits:

Produced by Illinois Theatre, Lyric Theatre @ Illinois, Dance at Illinois, and School of Music

Director: Latrelle Bright

Music Director: Julie Jordan Gunn

Choreographer: Elliot Reza Emadian

Fight Choreographer: David Sterritt

Scenic Design: Eleni Lukaszczyk

Costume Design: Samantha Abigail

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Sound Design: Alec LaBau and Dominick Rosales

Properties Master: Mark Kennedy

Photography: Darrell Hoemann

Photography: Megan J Coffel

In the News:

https://www.news-gazette.com/arts-entertainment/theater/come-to-the-cabaret-and-see-ui-departments-collaborate-for/article_47f2ab5f-5a34-571b-b0c7-283d8cb20582.html

For a PDF of the light plot click HERE

For a PDF of the channel hookup click HERE

For a PDF of the magic sheet click HERE

Known as Shakespeare’s bloodiest play, Titus Andronicus was reimagined for the Studio Theatre in a post-apocalyptic setting, emphasizing a society that still has a foot in the past while struggling towards an unknown future. Developing an environment with flickering fluorescent lights and over-emphasized shadows, the lighting design served to embrace the optimism of the burgeoning society in the beginning of the play before spiraling into a stark, bloody, desolate landscape. Working closely with projection designer John Boesche and drawing inspiration from James Turrell, the lighting together with media design helped to shape the environment as well as highlight areas of focus for the audience as the production ran through a truncated script.

Studio Theatre

Krannert center for the Performing Arts

Robert G. Anderson - Director

David Sterritt - Fight Director

Crom Saunders - ASL Director

Scenic Designer - Jose Diaz

Costume Designer - Courtney Anderson Brown

Lighting Designer - Alena Samoray

Sound Designer - Dominick Rosales

Projections Designer - John Boesche

For a PDF of the light plot and magic sheet click HERE

The lighting concept for The Rape of Lucretia has developed as a supporting narrative for the characters and their actions in the opera. Using the theme of shadow and light, the the roles of masculinity and femininity become magnified to enhance the monstrosity of the male protagonist’s (Tarquinius) actions as well as the catastrophic results of his reckless misdeeds. Lucretia is tragic in its beauty and striking in its timelessness, telling an ancient story that still resonates today. 

Working with Scenic Designer Gennie Neuman, we developed a simple yet versatile design with lighting elements that serve to not only set the tone of each scene but also function as scenery, a way to dictate time within the story, and also resonates as a metaphor for the characters in the opera. As the opera progresses, the lighting in a sense gets wrapped up in the energy of the narrative only to be fragmented, much like Lucretia herself. 

Stage Director: Dr. Kirsten Pullen

Music Director: Dr. Julie Gunn

Scenic Designer: Gennie Neuman-Lambert

Lighting Designer: Alena Samoray

Sound Designer: Hayat Dominguez

Costume Designer: Edith Moreno

Technical Director: Bobby Reynolds

Stage Manager: Kayla Uribe

Venue: Tryon Festival Theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

February 2019

ARMAGEDDON OR SUNRISE OR SOMETHING is an evening length duet made for and by Leah Wilks + Mauriah Kraker (L+M). The work is built on scores investigating exhaustion, endurance and the sensuality/the geographic of both internal and external landscapes. The duo grapples with the necessity of proximity to each other: they shake, rumble and drag each other to the ground, carry + sing to each other. Pulling from the duo’s different training histories in improvisation, Olympic-level sport, ballet, modern dance technique, photography, and sound design, the piece functions as both a grief ritual and a space for reckoning with limitation. Throughout the work the body becomes landscape, home, monument, spellcaster, caretaker, boundary, and the location of desire.

Choreography/ Performance: Leah Wilks + Mauriah Kraker

Sound: Hayat Dominguez, Leah Wilks

Lighting: Alena Samoray

Costumes: Larissa Almanza

Dramaturgy/jill-of-all-trades: El Emadian

Production Management: Rebecca Ferrell

Videography: Mya McClellan, Stephanie Shaw

Video Editing: Mauriah Kraker, Mary Kate Ford

Premiered at Bluestem Hall on Barnhart Prairie, Urbana, IL - under the kind auspices of Abbie and Tim Frank, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Dance.

Excerpt of the performance HERE

Originally workshopped at UIUC before heading to a world premier at the Tretyakov Gallery in Mosocow, Black Square is based on “Victory Over the Sun,” an opera produced by Russian Futurists in 1913. Taking the notion of the world being turned upside down and using one of the original “Black Square” paintings (by Kaяimir Malevich), the opera has been described as a “futuristic tragicomedy that mixes intellectual traditions of Russian avant-garde and fast pacing style of an action thriller.” ( David Salazar for Opera Wire, November 2019) Libretto written by Olga Maslova and Igor Konyukhov, music written by Ilya Demutsky

Stage Direction: Olga Maslova

Costume Design: Olga Maslova

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Sound Design: Hayat Dominique

Accompanists: Julie Jordan Gunn, Michael Tilley

Lyric Theatre @ Illinois

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts - Tryon Festival Theatre

December 2017

Sudden Rise is a boundary-defying series of performances which draws on a collection of fragments excerpted from the text Sudden Rise at a Given Tune, co-written by Wu Tsang and Fred Moten, to present a collage of words, film, movements, and sounds. Interwoven are the language and actions of a number of pivotal twentieth-century civil rights activists, poets, and essayists, including Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. Du Bois, together with lyrics by Jimi Hendrix and musings by Hannah Arendt. 

Sudden Rise is Commissioned by EMPAC / Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Tour Dates include:

New York City - The Whitney Museum - April 26-27, 2019

Athens, Greece - Fast Forward Festival - Onassis Foundation - May 5, 2019

Berlin, Germany - The Present Is Not Enough Festival - HAU - June 28-29, 2019

Zurich, Switzerland - Schauspielhause Zurich, Premier September 12, 2019 and continuing in Rep through October 2019

Script: Wu Tsang and Fred Moten

Choreography: Boychild and Josh Johnson

Music: Patrick Belaga and Asma Maroof

Hair: Sara Mathiasson

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Photographer: Paula Court

Costumes: Dumitrascu

You Sad Legend tells the tale of a warrior who falls in love, but then is torn away and forced to fight in a war where they are ultimately killed. Originally toured internationally by the artists Wu Tsang and Boychild, the production became fully realized with staging and lighting while at EMPAC.

April, 2016

Venue: Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Rolytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Artists: Wu Tsang and Boychild

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Technical Director: Geoff Abbas

Photography: Kris Qua

Antigamente originally premiered at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in 1988 and was resurrected as part of November Dance 2018: Moving Forward/Looking Back. Antigamente literally translates as “time that is ancient” in Portuguese. This piece was chosen to be part of the November Dance program because of the its timeless nature; existing as a live remnant of another time. The lighting design was developed as rustic tones that turned the stage (covered in crumpled paper towels) into an otherworldly landscape that embraced the changing dimensions of sunlight and moonlight before fading away into darkness.

Choreographer: Jan Erkert with Juli Halihan-Campbell

Costume Coordinator: Larissa Almanza

Sound Mixing: Luke Parker

Lighting Designer: Alena Samoray

Photography: Natalie Fiol

Venue: Colwell Playhouse at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

November 8-10, 2018

For a one-night event, world-renowned pianist Mabel Kwan performed Trois Hommages, a piece in three movements played on two pianos simultaneously. The lighting design, like the music, transformed the concert hall into an ethereal space that expanded the overall experience both visually and audibly. 

September, 2016

Venue: Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue, Troy, NY

Director: Argeo Ascani 

Artist: Mabel Kwan

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Photography: Eileen Baumgartner, Mick Bello

Picked Up Pieces is a collaboration of four different works (and one new work) created and re-imagined multiple times by choreographers Melanie Bales and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol throughout the last 32 years. The five sections blend seamlessly into one another, each with its own personality that meld into common movement. The lighting follows the energy of the dancers, running the gamut of romantic lifts to jazzy leaps and finishing with slow, deliberate grace.

Choreographers: Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Melanie Bales

Costume Coordinator: Larissa Alamanza

Sound Designer: Luke Parker

Lighting Designer: Alena Samoray

Photography: Natalie Fiol

Venue: Colwell Playhouse at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

November 8-10, 2018

Through continues investigation, Choreographer Charli Brissey has researched the material entanglements of bodies to illuminate strategies for difference and survival in precarious times. Miraging has emerged through on-going choreographic and theoretical research regarding entanglements of matter and materiality between human and nonhuman subjects and objects.

March, 2017

Venue: Studio Theatre - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

Choreographer: Charli Brissey

Concert Director: Jennifer Monson

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Two electronic music artists with vastly different backgrounds, Qrion and Jlin present media developed from opposite sides of the world but with equal global appeal. Snow and fog were used to highlight the origin of these artists influences while the simple yet effective lighting brought them together within the one performance space.

November, 2016

Venue: Studio 1 Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 

Director: Argeo Ascani

Artists: Qrion and Jlin

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Photography: Eileen Baumgartner 

A performance that juxtaposes jazz with extreme metal, guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist Colin Marston performed back-to-back sets that exemplified the beauty and complexity of music on both sides of spectrum. 

December, 2015

Venue: Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Director and Music Curator: Argeo Ascani 

Lighting and Stage Design: Alena Samoray

Photography: Eric Brucker

Electronic music composer France Jobin travels internationally creating and presenting "sound-sculptures," complex sound environments where analog and digital methods intersect. While in residency at EMPAC, we developed a lighting design for her new work built for the EMPAC concert hall that further enhanced and supported her work while also encouraging the audience to explore the space and experience the audio in all parts of the concert hall. 

October, 2015

Venue: Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Artist: France Jobin

Music Curator: Argeo Ascani

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Photography: Mick Bello 

A dance performance and craft installation about landscape, rubbish and our attempts to control nature. Set in the unique Zaccho Dance Theatre, the architecture as well as the installation allowed for limited yet unique lighting that enhanced and stylized the work. 

October, 2010

Venue: Zaccho Dance Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Director: Nina Haft

Lighting Designer: Alena Samoray

Photography: Rob Kunkle

Bi-yearly student-driven DJ event. Students part of the "PULSE" club on the Rensselaer Polytechnic University campus are invited to perform a DJ set utilizing EMPAC space and equipment. This particular lighting design included Mac 700s, Robe Wash and Spot fixtures, ColorKinetic Colorblaze 72 strips, Chauvet Colordash Batten Quad 12's, and an array of incandescent fixtures. Programming and busking was on an ETC Eos.

April 4, 2017

Venue: Theater at EMPAC, RPI Campus

Lighting Designer: Alena Samoray

Photography: Alena Samoray

The root of the choreography developed for Burnish stems in a lengthy study of color theory and the frequencies of light as they relate to each other, and how they could relate to ourselves. From the onset, an intimate relationship is developed between the performers and their environment, shifting and charging not unlike a living spectrogram. Woven together in an ever-shifting elliptical landscape, the movement progresses the shifting panorama of light through a series of landscapes that take the audience on a journey of complex relationships and beautiful interactions, escalating to a vibrant peak before finishing with a heartwarming intimacy.

March 2017

Venue: Studio Theatre - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

Choreographer: Kendra Portier

Concert Director: Jennifer Monson

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

A force in the rising genderqueer electronic aesthetic, Elsia Campton's raw texture and violent juxtapositions were underscored with a wall of subdued lighting that both highlighted and underscored her performance. 

May, 2017

Venue: Studio 1 Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 

Director: Argeo Ascani

Artist: Elysia Crampton

Lighting Design: Alena Samoray

Photography: Eileen Baumgartner