Michael Arden

I did the sets and the lights for that production, just to say.

Duly noted.

Correcting the record.

Lights and sets.

And sets.

So what interested you about making the world as much as inhabiting it as acting as well as lighting and sets?

Well, I think you go see a play.

images imprint upon your mind and if mixed with story and emotions so that they are connected when image is connected to catharsis or despair or hope or joy or feelings then I feel like that's like the most powerful artist statement and probably because like seeing plays when I was young it was like the visual blew me away of the depth and the color and the light and how the portals worked and

The scenery was painted, so it was not real, yet it was real.

You know, like all of that was like the imprint of visual on the mind really is something I'm kind of obsessed with.

So when I was a kid in my grandparents' garage, when I moved in with them, much to their chagrin, I used to like build walls.

Sets and elaborate curtain systems and so much lighting.

I mean, I was thinking about this that like, God bless them.

I probably like randomly electricity bill, like getting colored lights and borrowing gel and stealing gels from my theater and creating theaters and sets in my garage.

It was like my black box.

For shows that I would never do.

I would just create the set and then that would be it.

Did you ever take photographs or drawings?

No, but I made so many different sets.

It was like making these big dioramas for me.