Yerma / 2023
<Creative Team>
Playwright : Simon Stone (after Federico Gracia Lorca)
Director : Katherine Wilkinson
Set Designer : Charlotte Shi
Costume Designer : Nuzzi Li
Lighting Designer : Ari Kim
Sound Designer : Star Sun
Stage Manager : Kritina Varshavskaya
Photo by Charlotte shi, Nuzzi Li, Ari Kim, Ella Bromblin
NYU Walker Theater
Lighting Concept Sketches
I have always felt discomfort with the traditional view of women as fertile species. In our production, we approached Yerma not just as a woman who wants a child, but as an individual in battlefield with the weight of responsibility and the biological pressure of creation. As she begins her journey toward motherhood, her world transforms; she begins gardening. Our staging reflected this: a well-defined, modern "IKEA" interior that is gradually conquered by the raw materials of the outdoors—grass, dirt, and earth.
My design tracked her internal collapse: the grief of miscarriage, the clinical torture of IVF, and the mounting distress of isolation and envy. As these elements unfolded, the lighting transformed the indoor space into a raw outdoor landscape. When the drama reaches its peak, the stage lighting reinforces her oppression, capturing a psychological battlefield that eventually bursts into a desperate, all-consumed desire.