{"id":21307,"date":"2019-08-30T12:43:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=21307"},"modified":"2019-08-30T12:43:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:43:37","slug":"superstar-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/superstar-set\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate calls on Clemson for help on massive set"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jesus<\/a>Mike East\u2019s Charleston-based company, TTS Studios, was contracted to create the Jesus Christ Superstar<\/em> set for the musical\u2019s 50th anniversary U.S. tour, beginning in September. Plans called for another company to build the set for the earlier London production. At almost the 11th\u00a0hour, the producers asked East to build the set for the London performances \u2014 by late May, at least three months earlier than planned.
\nThe new timeline created a challenge: The large spaces in Charleston that could be used to construct a theater set were occupied with productions for the city\u2019s annual Spoleto Festival.
\nA 2007 performing arts alumnus, East called his former colleagues at\u00a0the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts\u00a0on the spur of the moment. Luckily, the Brooks Center was not being used during the last two weeks of May. Six Clemson students and two performing arts professors worked with six employees from TTS Studios to build the 32-foot-high set, one of the largest projects in the three-year history of the company.
\nThe structure, designed by veteran set designers Tom Scutt and David Arsenault and which East describes as \u201cpost-apocalyptic,\u201d has the appearance of an industrial steel grid \u2014 with a fallen steel cross in the center of the stage. The beams are actually aluminum covered by plywood.
\nOn May 30, East\u2019s massive set was disassembled and loaded into four tractor-trailers, driven to the Port of Charleston and shipped to London to be reassembled at the famed Barbican Centre.
\nThe purpose of completely building the set only to disassemble it before it was shipped to London was \u201cto make sure it\u2019s going to work, that it\u2019s safe,\u201d East said. \u201cIt\u2019s an abnormally high set.\u201d
\nThe set will return to the United States in the fall for a two-year national tour of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d that journeys to major cities such as Philadelphia, Cleveland and Miami, and also swings by Greenville\u2019s Peace Center for a week of performances in August 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike East\u2019s Charleston-based company, TTS Studios, was contracted to create the Jesus Christ Superstar set for the musical\u2019s 50th anniversary U.S. tour, beginning in September. Plans called for another company to build the set for the earlier London production. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1174],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-21307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-these-hills","tag-fall-2019-in-these-hills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/08\/Jesus-Christ-Superstar-at-Brooks-full-set.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21307"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}