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Dots — Unreal Design

When the pandemic closed the theater and stopped Dots before it could be performed, I rebuilt the stage inside Unreal Engine. This is the design work that came out of that — a simulation where I could keep experimenting with spacing, lighting, sets, and costumes, and run the whole thing against the music while I iterated.

Seven dancers in polka-dot costumes, each a different color, standing in a spotlight on a dark stage with three giant polka-dot spheres and a dotted backdrop behind them
Year 2020Disciplines Unreal Engine, Lighting, Set & Costume Design, SimulationTheater Virtual Redfern — Keene State College

Companion to the original dance: Dots →

Choreography Boris Willis  /  Rehearsal Director Cynthia McLaughlin  /  Music (Infinity Mirrors) Prismatic, FLY & DOC
Dancers Ashley Dahl, Lindsay Gibbons, Grace Lonergan, Alayna Massie, Cassandra O'Keefe, Melissa Ray, Samantha Witham

I recreated the Redfern's stage as a Virtual Redfern Theater and moved the choreography into it. Inside the engine I could keep making every decision a live tech week would normally settle — measuring spacing against the real dimensions of the stage, shaping each lighting state, and placing the set and costumes exactly where I wanted them, all running to the score rather than guessed at.

The look took its cue from dots and infinity-mirror motifs: oversized polka-dot spheres suspended over the stage, a dotted backdrop, and costumes that wrapped each dancer in the same pattern in a different color. The music — titled from Infinity Mirrors — played in sync with the scene, so cues and spacing could be tuned to it directly.

The rehearsal video, shot in the real theater before it closed, became reference footage inside the scene — projected onto the virtual stage so the digital staging could be checked against the bodies that made it. From flat work-light states to deep, saturated washes, the lighting was pushed and re-pushed; the ensemble was re-lit and re-costumed as many times as the design needed. The cancellation became a design laboratory.

The Dots title screen: a red dotted card reading DOTS, Start and Quit buttons, full production credits at left, and Virtual Redfern Theater, Spring 2020 at right
Title screen — Virtual Redfern Theater, Spring 2020.

The virtual Redfern — set, spacing, and light

The Redfern stage recreated in Unreal, seen from the empty house, with a colorful dotted projection filling the upstage screen
The Redfern stage rebuilt in Unreal, seen from the empty house.
Front-on view of the set in the editor: polka-dot spheres over a dotted backdrop, dancers lined up, light-rig gizmos around the stage
Set and lighting rig laid out in the engine — dot-covered spheres over a dotted backdrop.
A line of actors in dot costumes, each a different color, spaced across the stage beneath two large polka-dot spheres, empty seats at left
Costumed actors placed for spacing — each dancer wrapped in the same pattern, a different color.
Six dot-costumed dancers in a warm pool of light under a saturated green wash, spheres floating above
A saturated green wash tested against the ensemble.
Seven dot-costumed dancers gathered downstage in warm light, polka-dot spheres and a dotted backdrop behind
Warmer key light, spacing pulled downstage.
Six dot-costumed dancers in a shaft of warm light on a dark stage, spheres above and a dotted backdrop upstage
A different lighting state on the same grouping.
Polka-dot spheres and a dotted backdrop with the rehearsal video projected below, a red dotted figure caught mid-leap
Spheres, backdrop, and the rehearsal video together — a dancer mid-leap.

The rehearsal, projected into the scene

The virtual staging with dot-costumed actors and spheres above; the recorded rehearsal footage of real dancers projected on the stage below
The virtual staging above; the rehearsal footage, shot in the real theater, projected below.
Digital dot-costumed actors on the upper stage aligned above the projected video of real dancers rehearsing
Digital actors checked against the recorded dancers.
A single red dot-costumed soloist isolated in a spotlight while the rest of the ensemble holds upstage, rehearsal video projected below
A soloist isolated in a spotlight while the ensemble holds upstage.
Dot-costumed silhouetted actors above a projected rehearsal run of dancers on a theater stage
Dotted actors over the projected rehearsal run.
A distant first-person view walking the scene, on-screen prompt reading WASD to move, mouse to look
Walking the scene in first person — "WASD to move, mouse to look."

Built in Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine editor with a rect light selected, its keyframes animated across the Sequencer timeline
Lighting animated in Sequencer — a rect light keyed over the timeline.
Unreal Engine editor showing a spotlight's cone and falloff drawn in the viewport, with its intensity keyed in Sequencer
A spotlight's cone and falloff shaped in the editor.
Unreal Engine viewport lit with green washes and colored spheres, a post-process volume selected in the details panel
Post-process and colored washes tuned in the viewport.