Properties Design by Laura Merrill

City Lights Theater Company (San Jose, CA) January 2025

Directed by Kimberly Ridgeway

Written by Madhuri Shekar

Meet Evie, a college senior and gamer who’s a master at both online role-playing and real-life ghostwriting — her side hustle is writing love letters for other people. But she’s navigating the complexities of intimacy without firsthand experience. As she becomes drawn to one of her clients, Evie must learn to unleash her powerful persona in the real world. Level up your laughter and your heart with this delightfully frank look at love and sex in the digital age.

The Properties design for this show was very contemporary and made many nods to current gaming culture. Although many of the characters in this show needed a laptop Evie’s needed to be special and represent the person she is inside the gaming world. A bright purple laptop customized with stickers, from popular cat memes to WOW lingo (World of Warcraft) her laptop shows just how outgoing and adventurous she can be even though her personality outside of gaming appears to be bland and stunted by her shyness. This design also called for the three main characters to have weapons when they enter the gaming world. Kitty’s Alliance faction sword and Raul’s Gorehowl Axe are both pulled directly from the game, but Evie’s needed to be special to her. A 3D printed tri-spike screwed onto a 4’ broom handle served as the base for the staff, and it was decorated in a natural tree goddess motif to represent both her gaming characters fierce fighting style and elven character.

Some notable pieces made for this production include:

• 4’ 6” replica Alliance faction sword from World of Warcraft

  Made out of EVA foam sheets, EVA foam clay, 3D printed lion face, and leather scrap. I printed out a black and white 4’ 6” rendering of the sword as a guide to cut and carve the body from the EVA foam sheets. I then printed out a lion face to put into the hilt. Finally, I used the EVA foam clay to crate the lion’s main for the hilt and painted.

• 3’ 6” replica Gorehowl Axe from World of Warcraft.

  Made from an already fabricated foam body and decorated with dyed leather and gold painted accents. I used red acrylic paint to dye some white leather scraps I had on hand and glued it to the head of the Axe. I also wrapped the handle in brown leather scrap and painted the body with various appropriate metallic paint, so it would look a little more realistic.

• 5’ custom designed ‘nature staff’

  Made from 3D printed spikes and carved EVA foam. I screwed the 3-pronged 3D printed head of the staff onto a broom handle and then used EVA foam clay to build up the tree bark pattern on the handle and sides of the blade heads. Moss was used to fill in gaps and make the whole piece look greener and more natural.