The world premiere of Romero was staged as a ritual container for memory, rupture, and spiritual reckoning rather than a literal historical reconstruction.
When I first read Xiomara Cornejo's Romero, I knew the scenic design had to hold more than history; it had to hold ghosts. Set in the final hours of Archbishop Oscar Romero's life, the play bends time and invites the dead to speak. It is not realism. It is ritual.
The world emerged from the tension between sacredness and rupture. A cruciform arch stood at the center, part cathedral and part memory portal, while a fractured platform and textured black floor anchored the action in both earth and spirit.
The play's nonlinear structure required a space that could shift between beach, church, war zone, and afterlife without literal transitions. The design left room for silence, projection, masks, and witness, allowing the room to carry spiritual reckoning as much as image.
