She Kills Monsters - Tiamat, the five-headed Dragon Queen
In She Kills Monsters, Tiamat is a 5 headed dragon queen and the final boss of the D&D campaign that Agnes must fight her way through. These dragons have been made many different ways through the years, but I wanted mine to be the biggest while still staying light enough to fight in/with. What resulted was an awesome fight that left audiences cheering at the end. My students fell in love with these dragons, and I hung them up in my scene shop. I couldn’t bear to throw them away after all the hard work!
Patterning
The basic dragon pattern was purchased on Etsy and then blown up 500%. It was then cut out and traced 5 separate times onto cardboard. I needed these to be as light as possible because my actors would be puppeteering these after doing an entire show of stage combat in armor. Fun fact: These dragon heads measured over 6 feet long. The largest T-Rex skull ever discovered measures just over 5 feet long.
Dragon Dimorphism
Each of Tiamat’s heads needed to be reflected as a different dragon. In D&D, each type/color of dragon corresponds to a different elemental power. Red for fire, blue for wind/water, black for death, white for ice, green for poison/earth. Each of them had added horns or spines to more closely match the D&D designs. LED eyes were added and lit the corresponding color to match.
Final moment
In the epic culmination of the D&D campaign, Agnes needs to confront and defeat Tiamat. She systematically takes down each head until she faces the final head in a 1v1 battle. Using projections to help sell the fire breath, this moment got cheers every night and I felt very satisfied for all of our efforts.
Dublin Jerome High school
Fall 2025
Directed by Jeff Horst
Technical Design by Nick Hahn