The Wolves
by Sarah DeLappe
Oklahoma City University
Directed by Courtney DiBello
January 2019
2019 KCACTF Region Six- Barbizon Award for Theatrical Design Excellence in Scenic Design
2019 KCACTF Region Six- Student Choice Award
Lighting Design by Megan Fouts
Costume Design by Emma Hendren
Sound Design by Victoria Esquibell
Technical Direction by Luke Hadsall
Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves showcases the dynamic and complicated relationships between nine teenage girls on an indoor soccer team. Traditionally, The Wolves is performed on an empty field covered in AstroTurf, with no other scenery whatsoever. I knew going into this project that I wanted to get creative with the concept of an empty soccer field, and luckily the director agreed with me. We chose to go with some kind of abstraction of a soccer ball and field- the ball as some kind of structure that suggested the Plexiglass wall of an indoor soccer field, and the field as the floor of the stage. We decided that we wanted the scenery to grow with the team and become more unified and corporeal as the girls came together as a team. We were drawn early on to the shape of a soccer ball, and the concept of some kind of hexagonal structure that seemed to grow behind the cast. I was introduced to geodesic domes, which are round structures that are formed from a repeating pattern of angled polygons such as triangles or hexagons. Using this idea, we developed a series of units that would track across the stage between acts, adding to the overall structure until it was a unified pattern by the end of the show. The decision was made to have the structure grow in stages (one per scene) in order to showcase the growing bonds between the girls that strengthens in each scene. We also decided to utilize projections, and so we chose nine separate hexagons to cover and project on- one for each member of the team. When the pieces were all in place, we had a wall of hexagons that was dynamic and unique, yet unified and complete- just like the Wolves are by the end of the show.
Design Process
Paint and Construction Process
