The Year in Pixels: My Top 5 Favorite Video Design Projects of 2025

2025. What a year.

Looking back at our first full year in business at Ovation Theatrical Projections, it’s honestly a blur of rendering queues, Zoom calls with directors, and the sheer thrill of seeing our work hit stages across the globe.

Choosing "favorites" is always tough—it feels a bit like choosing favorite children. But as I reflect on the last twelve months, five productions stood out where the synergy between the script, the director’s vision, and our video design created something truly special. These are the projects that challenged us creatively, stretched our technical capabilities, and reminded me exactly why I started Ovation.

Here are my top five favorite design projects from 2025.

5. Around the World in 80 Days

The one thing I love almost as much as theater is travel. I'm not kidding when I say that my husband and I watch The Amazing Race while taking notes, constantly adding cities to our travel bucket list. So when I got the call from my friends at the North London Collegiate School in Jeju, South Korea about their upcoming production of Around the World in 80 Days, I knew I had to take it on.

This show is a video designer's dream. It's a literal marathon that moves from London to Suez to Bombay to Hong Kong—and about twenty places in between—often in the span of a few seconds. Fundamentally, I feel my job as a video designer is to transport the audience to fascinating worlds, and nowhere is that task more important than here. I had less than eighty days to create a world that takes eighty days for the characters to traverse, but the challenge was thrilling. Plus, the idea that my work on a show about international travel would premiere internationally made me smile.

This project was a favorite because we fully embraced a stylized aesthetic. Instead of photo-realistic locations, we leaned into a vintage travelogue feel. Each setting came to life through vintage-style postcards—some found in archives, others created by manipulating photos. These rich, sepia-toned cards kept the frantic pace of the journey alive while keeping the design elegant, simple, and grounded in a Victorian aesthetic. It may not have been the flashiest project of 2025, but it was one of the most fun.

4. Frozen

Taking on Disney’s Frozen is daunting. The audience arrives with specific visual expectations based on the film. The challenge was honoring that iconic look without just "playing the movie behind the actors." We wanted to create something distinctly theatrical.

My favorite part of the process was developing the show's magic. I had countless conversations with the director and designers at Georgetown Palace Theatre about the look and feel of Elsa's powers. We decided that when Elsa is in control, the snow effects should look like "snowflake pixie-dust" complete with flowing curves, sparkles, and beautiful lace snowflakes. But when she loses control, the snowfall becomes naturalistic, dangerous, and unpredictable.

I often say that video design shouldn't be the main focus on stage, but I can't deny that hearing the audible gasps from the audience during the freezing of Arendelle and "Let It Go" was a highlight of my year.

3. Hadestown: Teen Edition

When the rights for the Teen Edition of Hadestown became available, I immediately added it to my list. Hadestown is one of my favorite musicals of the past 25 years, so when calls started coming in for a video package, I had a true "twist my arm" moment.

The biggest challenge was visually representing the show without ripping off the incredible Broadway design. It was an exercise in restraint. It’s tempting to over-design the Underworld, but the music does the heavy lifting. We focused on texture and color: reds, oranges, and rolling haze to evoke unbearable heat. We also leaned into a steampunk aesthetic in the Underground with rotating gears and pistons in constant motion.

That aesthetic extended into the "Up Top" world of Act I. We set most of the act in "Chez Hermes," a New Orleans bar that is a faded version of its former self. This gave us the opportunity to incorporate the paintings of Aaron Douglas whose murals exploring the African American experience perfectly paired with the show's themes. It's a detail most of the audience won't notice, but one we knew we had to include.

2. Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors

Sometimes, you just need to have fun. This lightning-paced, hilarious adaptation was a joy because it allowed us to lean into both high camp and gothic melodrama.

We wanted the environment to feel like a classic Bram Stoker adaptation, but with a cheeky twist. Our favorite scene was the introduction of the Count. Jonathan steps into a dark, imposing castle, but as Dracula enters (to the opening riff of Britney Spears's "Toxic" in our pilot production), the space transforms with concert lighting and an Andy Warhol-esque portrait of Bela Lugosi as Dracula, tinted to match the bisexual flag. It's ridiculous and over-the-top, but when the projections get laughs along with the actors, you know you’ve nailed the tone.

1. Parade

This was the emotional anchor of our year. Parade is a difficult, necessary, and deeply tragic piece of theatre that explores one of the most horrible moments of anti-semitism in American history. Designing it requires immense respect for the real people portrayed, and as a Jewish artist, I felt an intense need to get this right.

The most impactful aspect of our design was the use of real newspaper headlines from the Leo Frank trial. The projections weren't showy—we used a black-and-white color scheme for over 75% of the show—but they reinforced the gravity of the narrative. It was humbling work and a powerful reminder of how video can serve the truth of a story.

To all the directors, producers, and technical directors we worked with in 2025: Thank you for trusting Ovation Theatrical Projections to help bring your artistic visions to life.

We are already deep into design meetings for productions premiering throughout 2026, and I can’t wait to show you what we’re cooking up next. If you have a challenging script on your upcoming slate, let’s talk about how we can bring it to life.

Happy New Year, and break a leg!

- Jeff Davis