Minneapolis Musical Theater - 2016

Director: Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha
Set Design: Darren Hensel
Lighting Design: Grant Merges
Costume Design: Clara Cavins-Wolford

Photos by Christian Unser

Leap of Faith is a musical based on the movie of the same title about a conman posing as a preacher. Since this was performed in a blackbox style theater, with a minimalist set, I used the costumes to give a sense of setting, and clearly distinguish the small town residents from the outsiders of the traveling revival. The costumes had a monochromatic color palette inspired by city skylines. I used modern silhouettes with clean lines which tied in with the sparseness of the set to show the artifice of their performance.

The statement piece of the show was Jonas Nightingale’s revival jacket, described in the script as a “disco ball for Jesus”. It needed to be loud, but still fit into Jonas’ shrewd and stylish look. I purchased a trendy cut suit, and draped a mesh sequin fabric over the top to give it the glitz we needed.