Vyshnavi Krishnan (She/Her)
Performance Design MAÂ
Vysh is a Performance designer currently based in Bristol. She is an Architect from India who strongly believes in the power of storytelling through Design and Art.
Her methods of working are concept driven. Vyshnavi’s concepts are inspired from art and real life. She designs by playing between colours, textures and lighting, always remaining mindful of sustainability and audience experiences. She also likes to design for both theatre and film.
BOVTS credits:
Set Design – A Midsummer Night’s Dream  (Malcolm X Centre)
Set & Costume Designer – The Ugly One  (Wardrobe Theatre)
Project Designs – The Writer (Set & Costume) The Lost Weekend (Film Noir – Specialization Project)
The Ugly One
The Ugly One by Marius Von Mayenburg, is an electric unravelling of a man’s descent as he loses sight of his identity. Produced at the Wardrobe theatre, this play is 65 minutes of uninterrupted dialogue as a cast of four seamlessly glide through multiple dark and hilarious characters.
The play never misses a beat, it is both anarchic and intimate. Director Natalie Simone and I created a piece that resonates with society today, while still being relevant in any time period. The vibrant costumes play an important role in the visual storytelling of the various characters and personalities in the story. Most of the character changes are rendered through changes in the costumes elements and the lighting changes, as we move through the various locations.
Photo Credit: Vyshnavi Krishan
The Writer
The Writer by Ella Hickson is a story about the protagonist’s fight for her freedom of expression against tradition and patriarchy. In this metaplay we watch her drafts unfold onstage under the scrutiny of a male director. Designed, with director Richard Bland, for the Weston Studio at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre, it renders a claustrophobic space that feels under constant scrutiny. The imagery that kept coming back to me was that of control and bursting out, which is achieved by the crumpled paper effect in the back and the revolving hexagonal “viewing cage” in the centre, that rotates to the different locations in the play. The crumpled paper wall also acts as a projection screen. The set rotates at predetermined intervals, so that we can get a different perspective of actions, as If the audiences are scrutinising and inspecting the drama .
Photo Credit: Vyshnavi Krishnan
The Lost Weekend (FILM-NOIR)
The Lost Weekend is a reimagining of 1945 American film, based on Charles R. Jackson’s 1944 novel. Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst, but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last – one way or another.
Working with mentor, Sarah Warren, I have set this project in Bristol in the 1960’s, identifying around 10 different locations in Bristol for this film.The centre of the design is the apartment, which plays an important location for many scenes in the story. The key was achieving continuity in design through all the scenes by using curved -post modern interior furniture and repetitive patterns on the wall/flooring in all the locations. Most of the exterior locations were carefully identified to maintain the Georgian-Victorian era visual language.
Photo Credit: Vyshnavi Krishnan
