Theatre. | Abbey Wiker Designs

Anne Frank was able to view the clock and a large tree outside the top attic windows while hiding in the Annex. Although I wasn't able to incorporate this in my final design, I did have it in my preliminary designs.

Helga Weiss was a young jewish girl who was held in a ghetto. She used drawing as her way of journaling. I was inspired by her artwork and used the same color palette in my design.

The Bookcase

A bookcase was used to hide the entrance to the secret annex. This bookcase played such a crucial roll in their hiding. In my preliminary design I used this as the main focus of the design.

Houses in Amsterdam are very specific to their architecture, having research on the houses allowed for a more accurate design.

Model House of Annex

Finding out as much as I could on Anne Frank was important to me because there are so many specific details to the home that are important in the design.

This is am image of Otto Frank in the Annex after the war. This image was great research for the interior.

Anne's Room has lots of details including the poster placements and the posters on the wall that were replicated accurately in my design.

The Annex & Building

Section of Annex & Building

Scenic Designer

The Diary of Anne Frank

David Korins Design

Internship Final

Scale: 1/4

2018

From January 2018 - June 2018, I worked at David Korins Design in New York, NY as the scenic design intern. While I was able to get trained and work on projects and shows, I also completed a final design project. For this assignment I was given two months to design a theoretical show. Although I was given a few hours during the 40 hour work week to work on my assignment, almost all of my time spent on the design was outside of studio hours. The parameters for the project were: design a play in Playwrights Horizons; create research packages, sketches, scene breakdown, white models, preliminary drafting, final model, final drafting, and 2 renderings; and present the final product to David Korins and the studio staff.

I choose to design the play The Diary of Anne Frank. I spent the first week reading the play, and the books "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Anne Frank Remembered". I researched articles and facts about the space and was able to reflect upon my two visits to the home in Amsterdam, my first time visiting was when I was 14. I collected hundreds of research images of the home, Amsterdam, details of the space, architecture, WW2, the holocaust, music, art, and artistic inspirations. From there I formed 6 different ideas for a design by creating thumbnail sketches.

Research guided my design as this story has so much historical facts that guide it. Telling Anne Frank's story through the set meant telling the truth of the historical space.

On top of providing all required items, I drafted the entire space in 3D, created a fly-though animation movie of the space, made a props list and props research packet, created an elements list, created 3D print outs as samples for the elements in 1/2 scale, and produced paint elevations.

For the design, I created a perspective space that replicated the original home as closely as possible while still meeting the needs of the play. The issue that occurred for me with the design was the play and the original diary have differences and the space described in the play does not accurately match the original space. I chose to design the space more deeply rooted in the historical space then what was described in the script.

I also felt, crucial parts of Anne's life were left out of the play that were in her diary. These important moments defined her as a person and without them, I felt Anne's story wasn't as true as it should have been. I wanted to showcase these missing moments by surrounding the space with the real pages of her diary that were not in the play.

The portals fad from like blue sky with her writing to the appearance of her pages. The floor boards also fading into the writings. Although this exact detail of the specific writings being selected would go unnoticed by an audience, I felt it would be important for the actors to know this detail as reminders throughout the show of the importance of Anne's story.

My design's purpose was to honor the true story of Anne, those in hiding with her, and those who protected them all. My design's purpose was to help preserve the history and make sure Anne Frank continues to live on forever.

For the presentation portion of the final I created a display of all my work on this show as seen in images here. I presented my final to the David Korins and his team in a 20 minute presentation with 20 minutes of discussions and questions following.

Above you can view my research package, my drafting package, my final model images, all paperwork, and my original design.