The Auburn Players will be putting on their production of To Kill a Mockingbird April 4th, 5th, and 6th.

One of the nice things about community theatre is to see people try new things and explore outside of their own comfort zone.

Chris Yeckel works as a mechanical engineer by day, but currently he is wearing many hats for the Players: set designer, actor,  and husband to the director. Although designing a set is different from his usual job, he insists that they have many similarities, to design “a 3-D object or mechanism that fulfills the requirements a customer has given.”

Considering that in this case, his wife is the customer, I did not ask who is more demanding. He went on however, “the products I work with daily, size tolerances are measured in thousandths of an inch.” On the other hand his set design will be seen from the house of the theatre and not under a microscope. Chris has obviously put his attention to detail and ability to visualize his work into the set design.

“Heather (McNeil) and I talked about this set being very vague and simple because the story is being told as a memory by Jeanne.  There are not a lot of colors, and the buildings are mostly just suggestions of what they really are.  For the courtroom and mob scenes, she wanted to make the audience feel they are a part of the events and have to make their own decisions about how they feel about the situations.  So in those cases, we brought the action into the house for an almost “in the round” feel.”

To see their design click on the video below or come see the show on April 4th, 5th, and 6th.

To buy tickets click here.