Dangerous Instruments
Video & Projection Design for Theatre
In the world premiere of Dangerous Instruments, Laura, a single mother, finds herself in the midst of a battle against a broken education and care system when her son, Daniel, spirals into darkness. She must confront a parent’s deepest fears and sacrifice everything to rescue Daniel from the brink of becoming America’s next tragic headline.
The video design primarily served to support the anachronistic structure of the play through animation of time and place. Metatheatrical textual and visual gestures and documentary-style interview videos coalesced to counterpoint the humanistic journey of the central character with the stark and distilled structures of a system looking to reduce each student to the lowest common denominator.
Production History
Palm Beach Dramaworks | Palm Beach, FL | 2025
Creative Team
Written by: Gina Montet
Directed by: Margaret M. Ledford
Scenic Design: Samantha Pollack
Costume Design: Brian O’Keefe
Lighting Design: Dylan B. Carter
Sound Design: Roger Arnold
Video & Projection Design: Adam J. Thompson
Production Stage Manager: Suzanne Clement Jones
Performed By
Jessica Farr: Mrs. Keavers / Claire
Savannah Faye: Laura Hammond
Bruce Linser: Robinson / Police Officer
Maha McCain: Ms. Blake / Sandy / Social Worker
Matt Stabile: Paul
Photographs by Curtis Brown Photography
Press
”Huge praise is well earned by the first rate creative team…and particularly video designer Adam J. Thompson.” - Carbonell Awards
“Scenic designer Samantha Pollack and video designer Adam J. Thompson set the journey in a featureless cement block room painted over to enhance its anonymous institutionalization. It is flanked by video screens…and a back wall that features theater-sized projected film interviews.” - Florida Theater On Stage
”Educators, social workers and therapists…appear in close-up video interviews by Adam J. Thompson, perhaps conducted by the media following the unspecified tragedy’s aftermath.” - Palm Beach Arts Paper
”At the top of each scene, a projection screen flashes his age. As the action plays out, a chill runs through your body as you realize that the play may be hurtling toward a nightmarish conclusion. The video design by Thompson is useful in more than one way. For instance, at different points in the play, the people to whom Hammond turns for help speak during interviews about their experience trying to help Daniel – and their work in general. We intuit that they are speaking sometime in the future. These apparently videotaped interviews, together with the impressively realistic live performances, lend the action a documentary-like feel.” - Theatrical Musings
“The meetings are interspersed with filmed interviews with the teachers, principals, a mom, a therapist, and a social worker, conducted in the aftermath of some sort of incident, the nature of which keeps the audience in suspense until the very end of the play…The design elements are top-notch.” - Palm Beach Daily News