Hi,
I'm the designer, Master Carpenter, and scene shop crew for a production of Cabaret under "interesting" circumstances. This is a college production for a very new theater program. This will be our last production before our theater construction is completed, so I still have no shop to build in... I'm building everything in my small driveway at home. We are renting a 700 seat proscenium theater that just had a $10 million remodel for this show, so the set needs to look good or it will be really sad in such a beautiful space. Along with the construction in my driveway, I'm only going to have about 8 hours for load in and set assembly. Oh yeah... the load in door at the theater is a double door a little over 7 feet high so no building large units and rolling them in off a truck. Back Stage there is about 5 feet of wing space on one side, 15 feet on the other, and the cyc is against the back wall.
So, the set has to be compact and highly portable. Drops are an obvious easy solution to some of my problems. I'm thinking about some platforms on wheels upstage that come down when drops are raised... although there's little space back stage to store anything that goes on a platform so they have limited usefulness.
We've also been playing around with the idea of a less realistic approach. Building a stage at center and placing all the action of the show up on that small stage with very limited sets. Then placing cafe tables down stage on both sides with actors watching the action of other scenes up on the stage... as if the scenes from the show outside the cabaret are part of the show on stage in the cabaret.
I'm curious what others have done with this show with either limited sets and/or with limited space. Thanks.
I'm the designer, Master Carpenter, and scene shop crew for a production of Cabaret under "interesting" circumstances. This is a college production for a very new theater program. This will be our last production before our theater construction is completed, so I still have no shop to build in... I'm building everything in my small driveway at home. We are renting a 700 seat proscenium theater that just had a $10 million remodel for this show, so the set needs to look good or it will be really sad in such a beautiful space. Along with the construction in my driveway, I'm only going to have about 8 hours for load in and set assembly. Oh yeah... the load in door at the theater is a double door a little over 7 feet high so no building large units and rolling them in off a truck. Back Stage there is about 5 feet of wing space on one side, 15 feet on the other, and the cyc is against the back wall.
So, the set has to be compact and highly portable. Drops are an obvious easy solution to some of my problems. I'm thinking about some platforms on wheels upstage that come down when drops are raised... although there's little space back stage to store anything that goes on a platform so they have limited usefulness.
We've also been playing around with the idea of a less realistic approach. Building a stage at center and placing all the action of the show up on that small stage with very limited sets. Then placing cafe tables down stage on both sides with actors watching the action of other scenes up on the stage... as if the scenes from the show outside the cabaret are part of the show on stage in the cabaret.
I'm curious what others have done with this show with either limited sets and/or with limited space. Thanks.