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A Summer with Pig Iron
by Lisi Stoessel, 3rd year MFA in Scenic Design
ajs2c@virginia.edu

My interest in Pig Iron Theatre Company began with a conversation with John Gibson, Artistic Director of Live Arts here in Charlottesville.  My thesis on site specific performance was in its early stages, and I asked John what groups he knew of were doing that kind of work in the US.  Pig Iron was at the top of his list, and it just so happened that they were to be visiting UVA for their residency in the Drama Department that January.   A course of serendipitous events led to my receiving a competitive fellowship from the Department of Drama and the UVA Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to study in Philadelphia for my MFA thesis, while simultaneously getting my first experience working with an ensemble style theatre group.  I was the Associate Set Designer/Makeup Designer for Pig Iron’s Isabella, a reworking of Measure for Measure that premiered at the Philadelphia Live Arts/Philly Fringe Festival this past summer. 

I see the experience as one of the most important things I have done for my relationship with theatre.  Most significantly, I was exposed to a holistic approach to producing a show. The structure of Pig Iron’s process had a lot in common with production at UVA.  Production meetings and tech rehearsals moved things along efficiently for opening night.  The difference was that the designers and actors worked so closely together.  With Pig Iron, it is customary for designers to attend even the most early and formative of rehearsal sessions.  At the weekly Creative Meetings, designers and actors brainstormed about the show and gave each other feedback on any aspect of the production.

This intimate relationship with the actors and the other designers is something that I valued highly and hope to experience again.  It is this way of working together that makes Pig Iron shows so uniquely unified in terms of design and performance. 

To find out more about Pig Iron Theatre Company, go to www.pigiron.org.

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