Design Statement

The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7 1/2 Cents by Richard Bissel. The story focuses on the labor problems of the pajama factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the 1950s. The workers are demanding a seven and a half cent raise and in the midst of this dispute, there is a budding romance blossoming between Sid, the new factory supervisor, and Babe, the head of the grievance committee. The lighting created the two worlds of the show: the real world of the story and the emotional internal world of the characters during the musical numbers. The songs were the opportunity for the lighting to step away from the realism of the show and into the emotional world of the characters.