Moana Jr.
The summer of 2022, I had an internship at the Round Barn Theater. Part of my responsibilities was serving as the Design Coordinator for Moana Jr., the youth summer camp show.
Due to the culturally important material in Moana Jr., we were worried about being insensitive. We decided to take it from an angle that the kids in the show are storytellers, rather than the characters themselves. We also decided to avoid any kind of cultural dress, instead we decided to use objects that you could potentially find in the ocean, using shells and common pieces of trash. The kids got to make their own costumes. I oversaw their designs and also built specific costume pieces and props! Unfortunately, since the actors were children, I don’t have any pictures of the props onstage.
Director: Molly Hill
Design Coordinator: Eliana Spitler
Lighting Designer: Alex Koontz
Te Fiti/Te Ka
This was my favorite reuse of a piece of trash! Te Fiti’s chest plate was originally the plastic cover of a potty training toilet seat. I hot glued green twine down in center and covered the edges with crumpled brown paper. I lightly covered the brown paper with green paint and glued a piece of velcro in the center so that the Heart of Te Fiti can be attached and removed. The chest plate is attached around the neck with a piece of green string.
The Heart of Te Fiti
I had an idea early on to designate magical items with tin foil— it fit within our theme of making things out of trash, but is also shiny and catches the light well. However, a camper’s family donated a bunch of curved green sea glass that looked amazing for the Heart!
I glued the sea glass, along with a few other glass gems, to the tin foil base and attached it to a plastic pearl necklace.
Tomatoa
Tomatoa was SO MUCH FUN to make!!!
He began as a vinegar bottle and two tide pod containers. I cut the bottom off of the bottle, making it a hat, and hot glued zip ties to the top of the bottle. I spray-painted it red with gold accents, then covered them in shiny costume jewelry. Then, I glued felt circles to the zip ties to be the eyes. The zip ties were an amazing choice, as they bounced jauntily when the actor moved. I used gold sequins for eyeliner and finished it all off with silver sequins for highlights in the eyes.
