"The Wishing Tree"

DIRECTOR & MOVEMENT DIRECTOR

The Wishing Tree is an original devised play that was inspired by a tree that I found in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles. It was a tree that was covered in colored paper with wishes written from people passing by. It had wishes about love, family, politics, success, and even silly ones that made you laugh. The play explores different people of all ages and experiences, and what stories and complexities lie behind a simple wish. This play was performed in the Hallberg Theatre at California State University of Fullerton.

The Wishing Tree

Performance Video

Developing "The Wishing Tree"

orignal wishing tree

wishing wall @ CSUF

Along with the wishes I found in Little Tokyo, the cast set up a "Wishing Wall" on campus and asked students passing by to write a wish and put it on the wall. We collected every wish and used them as raw material to create a script which inspired the movement choices.

our wishing tree

We collected all wishes from our wishing wall and tied them to the light up tree that we use in the show

The Wishing Tree Images

Scroll through for images from The Wishing Tree

Photography by Reed Flores

Lighting was extremely important for this play. I needed the stars and the tree to have the ability to light up independently from each other, and there were many shifts made by light cues.