The Production Designer for Interview With The Vampire, Mara LePere-Schloop (Django Unchained, Battle Los Angeles), sat down with Variety to discuss how she put together the series’ iconic Théâtre Des Vampires, the seat of a coven on vampires who use their theatre performances as a cover from the mortal world.
It’s a project she’s wanted to work on since first joining the show. “Living in New Orleans, it was really an exciting exercise to think about how we could tell that story and showcase the city in Season 1,” she said. “But more than anything, I really wanted to sink my teeth into this theater and the coven.”
According to Variety, Showrunner Rolin Jones (Weeds, Friday Night Lights) and LaPere-Schloop found the perfect space for their theatre in an old Prague factory. “There were these multi-level platforms and raw brick. It just had this eerie undertone, which, you know, is perfect,” LaPere-Scloop said. “The concept was that the coven had moved from their original theater, and they had dragged along some of their props and some of the set pieces they had used.”
One of the most visionary interpretations of the series was a projector used for the theater’s performances. As the main characters, Louis and Claudia are swept up into the coven, the projections change visually to represent this. “The projections kind of start monochromatic and then, as time passes, we start to see color bleed in,” LaPere-Schloop said. “It is just so wonderful to work with people who are excited about putting this much detail into the show.”
Vareity notes that LaPere-Schloop was certain to include the murals described in Interview With The Vampire’s original novel series of the same name by Ann Rice (The Witching Hour, Lasher). “I wanted to capture some of those immersive feelings that Louis was feeling in the novel, so we took those same paintings and manipulated them into theater backdrops as though they are part of theater performances the coven has done in the past,” she said.
The full interview can be read here.