14: 2006 - Party Piece

This set is the pinnacle, to date, of using stage space. Two complete back gardens crammed into the available area was always going to be a challenge. From the photo above, it almost looks as though there is room to spare: but that was before all the rest of the furniture went on (a lot of which was set during the course of the play) and a cast of seven was added. Not only that, but there had to be some space left for the actors to move around in!

Because of the complexity, the design started in absolute earnest from the beginning of rehearsals. Wooden and cardboard templates for all the major items were used from the start, along with the actual furniture for the production, wherever possible. On the bright side, all the preparatory work meant that the set building itself went quite smoothly - it was simply a case of making it match exactly what had been rehearsed. A lot of the time, we don't have an actual formal plan for the set: we'll know that there are two doors upstage, for example, but their exact position can vary by a couple of feet depending on aesthetics or preference when the set is built. This was not one of those occasions.

It is often the case that a largely free-standing set is harder to produce than a box, partly because there is more freedom to place the various components (and hence a lot more procrastination on the part of the producer!) and partly because each component has to manage to be solid and stable in its own right (where a box set is inherently rigid). This fell somewhere between the two: most of the construction could be braced to the back wall , as with a box, and most of the remaining dressing was substantial to begin with. The fence was a single panel, cut away on a fairly steep diagonal, otherwise it would have prevented the audience seeing across the stage, but that was the only concession made to imagination. Ladders offstage were used to put actors "upstairs" when needed: it's always that much more effective when voices come from the direction they are supposed to!

It must be said that the brickwork on the houses was probably the grimmest task of the lot: it wasn't completed until about an hour before curtain-up on the opening night. Our budget wouldn't stretch to brickwork wallpaper and, in any case, there was supposed to be a marked difference between the two frontages (or, possibly, backages?). That contrast is carried on throughout both gardens: one nice and tidy, the other shabby and unkempt.

All in all, one of our most complete designs that really did work well. Difficult, but extremely rewarding.