Stage And Sets
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Stage And Sets |
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THE STAGE
FINDON VILLAGE HALL
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The diagram above shows the stage layout at the Village Hall. The main stage is approximately 28' x 11', to give an idea of scale. In other words, about the size of a reasonably spacious household lounge/dining room. That would in theory make it just about right for building, say, a lounge/dining room set - except for all the other considerations that go into making a stage both viewable and convincing. That said, we like the stage and the Hall both: over the years we have all become accustomed to each other! We know what - and how - we can do with the space and how long it will take to make it work: all factors which have led to a continuous improvement in the set building process.
Physically, the stage area will open out from back to front and the stage itself slopes down towards the front (the "rake"). Both these factors mean that the set itself incorporates a fair amount of distortion over the "normal" shape of a room and will end up as a tilted parallelogram shape:
The initial set design has to take into account a variety of factors, starting - logically enough - with what the play requires. A lot of play scripts do include a plan - normally from the first (professional) production - which can be a help to work from. Either way, it's nice to know whether we are building a lounge, castle, garden or caravan park before moving on to work out what has to be fitted into the area at hand. The next stage is to identify entrances and exits and where they need to be placed, before joining them up with walls (assuming there are walls...). These have to work as intended and ensure that the wings on both sides are fully screened from view. Large set pieces, such as fireplaces and windows, then need to be added into the design and whatever wall space is left over can be used for furniture:
Furnishings are an issue in themselves. Bigger items have to be placed where they will not obscure the action of the play - usually along the edges or at the back. Other pieces - chairs and tables and so forth - can, at least, go anywhere, but they have to be accessible. A desk, for example, may only be 2' x 4' in physical size, but add a chair and allow for the fact that the drawers need to be opened while someone is sitting at the desk and suddenly it occupies two or three times the space - while still looking natural and not encroaching too much on the rest of the stage!
Having figured all that out, then comes the sanity check for white space and whether there is enough of it to accommodate the cast. Filling the stage with bric-a-brac and then trying to cram ten people on is difficult. Equally, though, allowing space for ten people can leave the stage looking terribly empty when only a couple of them are on. At this point it is also a good idea to check that critical actions can take place - it is a bad idea to get to opening night before discovering that the audience get a grandstand view of the sofa while a key murder is taking place on the floor behind it...
It gets easier after that. Technical items - working electrics, phones, doorbells - need to be fitted into the existing design and methods of operation established. A lighting scheme has to be considered that will give the right sort of effects without filling the stage with unnatural and artificial shadows. In that, we are quite fortunate, as the Hall has a comprehensive lighting setup. The technical backstage is covered elsewhere, however, so is not detailed here.
The final part is turning the design into reality. This happens the weekend before the production and involves a fair bit of labour. After months of rehearsal with a particular layout, the last thing a cast or producer wants is to have to make significant changes to many moves, so the building crew have to manufacture pretty close to the plan. Favourite (and easiest) question is the last one for the producer: "Now what colour do you want it?"!
SET DESIGNS GALLERY
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