Sophie E. Rodriguez
Sophie E. Rodriguez

PASSAGE cARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 2024 - Project Manager

Budget: $10,000

Technical Director: mARTIN sUNDERLANd, Assistant Technical Director: Carolyn Burback

This production featured several curved walls, curved platforms, a small pool, and involved the creation of a counterweight system in this venue. This set was constructed during a six week build, constructed by the Technical Director, the Assistant Technical Director, two staff carpenters, and stagecraft students. The Project Manager is responsible for the management of the CMU School of Drama’s Technical Direction department for a period of six weeks for CMU’s thirteen show season in three venues. Responsibilities of the Project Manager include but are not limited to: supervising and delegating responsibilities for all technical direction students’ production assignments: such as budgeting, drafting, building, installing, and striking each show. The Project Manager also creates/maintains all schedules, build calendars, project tracking documents/databases.

Budget Summary, Expense Report, Build Calendar, & Project Checklist (Pictured Below)

This show required a counterwight system to be installed into a blackbox venue for this cue, to raise to pool cover to reveal the water. The rigging points would fly out of sightlines when the panel was not in the up position. (See Production Credits)

Test Fly Cue of the pool cover with water. This was my first show that ever included water, many conversations about filtration, water temperature, and water cycling took place.

Above drawings pictured to the left. The pool cover had fiber optics designed into the bottom that would sit in the pool of water when the cover was in the down position. The lighting team needed daily access to the power for the fiber optics, and needed to ensure that their equipment would not get wet. This process involved several interdepartmental meetings to find a solution that worked for the lighting team, the scenic build team, and the scenic designer.

Scenic Designer: Jonah Carleton, Lighting Designer: Ariel Bernhard, Costume Designer: Carrie Anne Huneycutt, Media Designer: E.Lieu Wolhardt, Director: Ausar Stewart, Actress in Video (Character G): Mariana Garzon Toro, Production Photos: DSR Photos

A DOLL’S hOUSE cARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 2023 - Job Lead

Budget: $4,500

pROJECT mANAGER: mARTIN sUNDERLAND

This production featured fabric walls, wooden frames stretched with spandex, to act as media surfaces and to allow for backlighting shadow work moments. This set was constructed during a three week build, constructed by the job lead, a staff carpenter, and stagecraft students. The job lead is responsible for the constructon of the build, the scenic installation, maintenance during the run, and strike.

Budget Summary, Build Calendar, Project Checklist & Lineset Schedule

Set Designer: Ningning Yang , Media Designer: Jin Oh, Lighting Designer: Xuewei Eva Hu, Costume Designer: Olivia Curry , Sound Designer: Isaac Hu, Director: Jasmine Roth, Production Photos: DSR Photos

These walls were used as both a media surface but were also backlit for shadow moments.

Cast: Nora Helmer: Alex Sheffield, Torvald Helmer: Lukas Jarvi, Kristine Linde: Sophia Macy, Doctor Rank: Joshua Elijah Lewis, Nils Krogstad: Travis Roy Rogers

This show needed snow to fall just above the exit door, this is the snow roller from initial brainstorming to the cued moment in the show.

*See above production credits

This old Haunt Carnegie Mellon University 2022- Draftsperson

Budget: $4,500

Job Lead: Monica Tran

This production was the academic premiere of This Old Haunt, Written by SMJ. The set featured the frame of a house, along with a 5’ wide hole in the floor intended for an actor to fall inside of it. A majority of the set had to be constructed in the theater itself due to the larger width and height of the walls. The walls were made up of laminated 2x4’s that were either notched, or created a half lap for an easy assembly during this production’s load in. Below are selected construction drawings for the duration of the build, and install drawings for load in.

Take a look at selected build and install draftings, created in AutoCAD

 

Set Designer: Peter Rule, Lighting Designer: Xotchil Musser, Costume Designer: Claire Shea Duncan, Sound Designer: Tate Abdullah, Production Photos: DSRphotos.com (DSR Photos)

This show featured an actress falling into the hole on stage; we had to create circular platform plugs to replace the stage trap plugs that we removed. We then had to create a surface for this actress to land on inside of the hole, complete with a crash pad and railings to keep her safe.

Sections of plug platforms in stage floor were removed and replaced with custom plugs to create the desired shape.

Murder on the Orient Express Cortland Repertory Theatre 2021- Assistant Technical Director

Budget: $3,500

TD: dANA wHITE jR.

This production featured a 20’ wide x 8’ long moving platform that consisted of the train’s cabs. We utilized stud walls to create this moving unit, and fitted it with caster boards - we had to be able to fully disassemble the unit to fit into our box truck and theatre, and reconstructed in the space. This show also has several tracking units, including two walls that we created a tracking system using two parallel caster boards on the stage floor. Twenty nine stud walls and six custom built doors later, welcome aboard the Orient Express!

Take a look at some of my plates for the platform frame, decorative walls, tracking units, and beds

Set Designer: Darin V. Himmerich , Lighting Designer: Matthew Webb, Costume Designer: Wendi R. Zea, Sound Designer: Seth Asa Sengel, Technical Director: Dana White Jr., Production Photos: Eric Behnke

Each side of the stage had these two tracking door units., but there was not an available pipe to hang a track from. We utilized a parallel caster system and a custom sized track above the unit so that it could move seamlessly.

Transition - 20’x8’ platform moving downstage, tracking walls (video to left) tracking on stage. This effect was achieved by attaching caster boards to the stud platform!

*See above production credits

The Heidi Chronicles Otterbein University 2022 - Technical Director

BUdget: $7,000

ATD: Luca Fragottia

This show was different than others that I’ve worked on in that it required four projection surfaces that needed to be able to be tracked stage left or stage right when not in use. This multi-level set had a build time of only two weeks, one of those weeks being full time work days, the second week being part time work days because of classes beginning. Some quick facts about this production: this show required 180 (yes 180) 2”x4”x12’, 30 sheets of plywood, 24 yards of muslin, and almost 40 sheets of lauan! This was the first production that I drafted fully in 3D after self-teaching just months prior. The initial budget was $6,000 but was bumped up due to inflation between the preproduction planning phase and the build beginning (about a two month period, Nov. 2021 - Jan. 2022) - the paperwork below reflects the initial, not finalized budget.

Take a look at my selected shop drawings, created in AutoCAD

Download my cost estimation, unit breakdown, load-in & strike plans

The Pajama Game Otterbein University 2021- Assistant Technical Director

Budget: $12,000

tD: jUSTIN MILLER

During this production I was in charge of helping run the shop and take the lead on several scenic units, predominately the forced perspective wall. For this unit, we decided to lay out all of the necessary sheets of lauan, draw out the wall based off of plates that I had created, and then to create the steel frame we decided to frame to fit in accordance with the jigged out lauan, as any other method would have taken up a lot of our build time. This production included several other steel units, and pneumatic wagons to create the various locations.

Take a look at my plates for the perspective wall, created in AutoCAD

Set Designer: Stephanie Gerckens, Lighting Designer: Marcus Wuebuker, Costume Designer: Judy Gerdeman & Rebecca White, Technical Director: Justin Miller, Production Photo: Mark Mineart

Hair! Cortland Repertory Theatre 2022 - Assistant Technical Director

Budget: $1,000

TD: Dana White Jr.

This was the first show that I got to ATD at Cortland Repertory Theatre (Cortland, NY). This show featured a false proscenium, 16’ diameter circular platform, a painted drop that allowed for shadows to be revealed through lighting specials! Our load-in was just a week and a half after our contract began, this show was constructed by our team of two scenic carpenters, one scenic carpentry intern, myself - the ATD, and the Technical Director. For this show, I was also able to fully cut, sew, and grommet a custom-sized drop, the flag drop pictured below; I also sewed and grommeted our rag drop for this production.

Set Designer:Rozy Isquith , Lighting Designer: Eric Behnke, Costume Designer: Jimmy Johansmeyer, Technical Director: Dana White Jr., Production Photos: Rozy Isquith

An Enemy of the People Otterbein University 2020 - Technical Director

Budget: $3,000

This was the first show that I got to TD in undergrad. This show introduced me to several new materials such as PVC pipes and flex drains, and I worked with familiar materials such as tube steel and lauan. This wall ended up weighing around 600 lbs, and we were continuously adding weight to the rail as we added more scenic elements. This build began by welding the wall’s steel frame, cartooning out the organic shapes on the lauan, cutting away the negative space, adding braces back in, and then adding the 3D elements onto the wall. This build was also challenging because it was during fall of 2020, and we had to adjust for COVID-19 protocols, so that limited how many people I could have working on one unit at a time and I had to really consider social distancing during this build and load-in.

Take a look at my shop drawings created in AutoCAD

Set Designer: Rob Johnson, Lighting Designer: T.J. Gerckens, Production Photos: Mark Mineart

Into a Lamplit Room Otterbein University 2021 - Assistant Technical Director

Budget: $3,000

TD: ELLIE iANNUCCI

This show was an exciting one to work on! This show was mostly constructed out of tube steel, and plywood, and included a 16’ long catwalk. We utilized welding truss systems for this catwalk and did several flex-tests throughout the build to ensure that it was strong enough to stretch the full 16’ safely. We also created jigs to weld the four vertical structural towers, and made the “x” shapes on the towers out of plywood. This set also included two metal staircases, and a false proscenium that was also constructed from steel.

 Scenic Design: Rob Johnson, Lighting Design: TJ Gerckens, Costume Design: Rebecca White, Technical Director: Ellie Iannucci, Production Photos: Mark Mineart

The Tempest Otterbein University 2021 - Assistant Technical Director

Budget: $3,500

TD: pATRICK sTONE

This production was created utilizing the catwalk from the above production Into a Lamplit Room… to create the platform, we cut railings off of the catwalk, cut the catwalk in half, and stacked the pieces next to each other to create a deeper platform. The walls were all cartooned from gridded plates and frame to fit using steel. To get the organic shapes of the snakes, foam was carved to create that depth. The spiral stairs were made from plywood, and then we used foam and distressed it by carving, and then covered them with muslin to give our charge artists a smooth surface to paint on.

Scenic Design: Edith Watkins, Lighting Design: TJ Gerckens, Costume Design: Valerie Frizzell, Technical Director: Patrick Stone, Production Photos: Mark Mineart