Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez

University of Northern Colorado. Guest Director Alison Vaquez. Procreate. 2021.

Zoot Suit tells the story of Henery Rayna and the 38th Street gang that were trialed for the murder at the Sleep Lagoon in California during World War II in 1943. This theoretical design was inspired by our guest director, Alison Vasquez. For this play, I kept it time period and drew a lot of inspiration from the historic Zoot Suit riots that happened in Los Angeles, California. For the color palette of this show, I kept the two gangs in jewel tones. The two female leads have the same color palette as Henry Reyna to show their connection to this character. If the other female characters were fully rendered, they would also be the same color palette as their associated partner for the show. This would help navigate the audience throughout the show.