Theater
Side Show is a musical about Siamese twins Daisy and Violet. To tell the story of their journey from a ramshackle traveling show to stardom on an international stage, Rockwell Group’s sets frame the sisters’ life as a memory in which their earliest roots can’t be forgotten
How can a memory come to life onstage?
A multi-level, rough-hewn set portrays the tawdry freak show.
The first act is cloaked in darkness to convey a seedy atmosphere.
Harsh sideshow lights illuminate a riot of levels and staircases.
As the girls prepare to leave the traveling show, the set moves into darkness upstage.
Throughout the first act, elements like platforms, staircases, banners, and a small proscenium stage can be reconfigured by actors and by computer-controlled automation.
As the second act begins, a small gilded proscenium slowly expands into the large proscenium of the Palace Theatre in New York.
The twins find the vaudeville stage is not so different from the side show.
The ghost of the sideshow’s crude atmosphere remains visible.
The show begins and ends with the haunting image of a man watching a movie about “Freaks.”
Platforms return to the stage and reconfigure various scenes.
The twins are thrust into the public eye and subjected to the crassness of the press.
What’s Going On
