(A)loft Modulation
Video & Projection Design for Theatre
Inspired by true events at 821 6th Ave between 1957 and 1965, (A)loft Modulation traces the turbulent, roiling obsessions of artists and loiterers in their pursuit of purpose, while social chaos seeks to overthrow American culture. A gritty, dilapidated five-floor walk-up in Manhattanʼs seedy flower district is an after-hours haunt of musicians, artists, junkies and sex workers. It’s the last explosive heyday of jazz and the inhabitants of the building jam night after night, while a compulsive photographer documents everything with round-the-clock reel-to-reel recordings and photographs.
The video design featured four embedded live cameras which captured and reprojected the action in close up in real time, fusing the languages of theatre and cinema into a voyeuristic documentary landscape.
Production History
ART/NY Theatres | New York | 2019
Creative Team
Written by Jaymes Jorsling
Directed by Christopher McElroen
Music Direction by Jonathan Beshay
Scenic Design: Troy Hourie
Props Design: Leila Ben-Abdallah
Costume Design: Elivia Bovenzi
Lighting Design: Becky Heisler McCarthy
Sound Design: Andy Evan Cohen
Video & Projection Design: Adam J. Thompson
Video & Projection Team
Video & Projection Design: Adam J. Thompson
Assistant Video & Projection Design: Jamie Godwin
Press
“…it looks and sounds terrific, especially when projections, by Adam J. Thompson, of Smith’s photographs play across Troy Hourie’s complex, multilayered set while the house band wails.” - The New Yorker
“Adam J. Thompson’s video design places cameras throughout the loft, projecting lo-fi close ups and unedited peeping tom angles like fragments of early era Casavetes films.” - Theater Pizzazz
“Adam J. Thompson's video designs add to the show's feel of a multimedia mélange, with projected live video of the reel-to-reel tapes playing the historic recordings, alternating with archival photographs of some of the real inhabitants of the Jazz Loft.” - TheaterMania
“The production elements in (A)loft Modulation are top-notch. Especially solid are…Adam J. Thompson’s video design…There are several beautiful montages…of live music, manic video, and wordless movement.” - The Reviews Hub
“The playwright's bottom-up view of this rattletrap bohemia is richly atmospheric…aided by Adam J. Thompson's video design -- of tape reels, police cars, musicians, and Pittsburgh streets, projected on every available surface.” - Lighting and Sound America