Seeking set design inspiration - a box set play without a box set

Stuart R

Member
Hello tech theatre hive mind –

I’m about to be in a position to design (and build) a unit set for a school production of “And Then There Were None,” the Agatha Christie mystery that gathers ten strangers together in a house on an island, strands them in a storm, and then kills them off one by one. [I'll also be the stage director. I'm hoping we get along.]

I’ve designed quite a few sets before, but this one feels like a particular challenge because we don’t really have the space, personnel, or budget to build a large, realistic box set, which seems to be what’s called for. According to the script, the story is set in a large gathering or living room in a mansion built on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with extensive windows on the upstage side that feature a set of French doors leading out onto a balcony, beyond which is a view of the sea. The plot requires that the room have three additional interior doors (dining room, study, and hallway to the rest of the house). There is a fireplace on one wall, whose mantel is decorated with a set of figurines that are important to the plot. The story takes place in the late 1930’s, and reference is made to rich owners having built the house just a few years earlier at great expense, so I’m picturing Art Deco as opposed to mahogany-paneled manor house.

Though our playing space is not large*, a realistic set would still require perhaps 50-60 l.f. of walls, with wall treatments and sconces and baseboards and crown moldings, three fancy interior doors with trim, and a large wall of “glass” (with French doors in the middle) looking out to the “sea.” In other words, huge, difficult, expensive.
That’s if I go realistic with it. Part of me is wondering if I can instead go representational, symbolic, or “theatrical” (for lack of a better term) and cut out what is not actually needed, and this is where I need your help (ideas).

I’ve looked online at other peoples’ designs, of course, and the vast majority of them are realistic, so I haven’t found that much inspiration. I guess the question is, can you do a box set play without a box set, or at least without a fully realized box set? [Choose another play, you say? Yes, well, the entire 9th grade reads “And Then There Were None” in English class, so there is great excitement about our doing it on stage.]

We don’t have real fly space, and most of the set will need to be downstage of the proscenium anyway, so I can’t (for example) simply hang windows and doors in space with no walls in between. More ideas:, paint the walls black and just have the doors/frames and rear window/sky and some Art Deco artwork on the walls in color? Or maybe those elements are all sort of floating in a neutral environment of black or red curtains (pipe and drape). I could also conceivably paint the deck something pretty vivid – faux marble or terrazzo or a big checkerboard of stone tile – to make it feel like it’s taking place on a giant playing board.

That's what I've thought up so far, and it's not exactly lighting my fire, so I’d love some more ideas to play with. PI do want to be clear that I am not looking for others to design my set for me. I’d just love some help in thinking outside "the box." I keep feeling like the flash of inspiration I need is out there somewhere – the kind that results in an exclamation of “Yes! That would be SO COOL!” I can take it from there.

Thanks in advance.

- Stuart Rosenthal

* Picture a cafeteria with a stage at one end. There is a proscenium opening (24’ w x 10’ h) with a 38” tall thrust stage platform (24’ w x 16’ d) parked in front of it. The stage house upstage of the plaster line is 32’ wide (i.e. 4’ “wings”) and 16’ deep, but anything staged beyond the proscenium tends to get lost so we tend to keep the actors on the thrust. Also, I can extend the thrust platform 4’ in any direction if needed.
 
Hello tech theatre hive mind –

I’m about to be in a position to design (and build) a unit set for a school production of “And Then There Were None,” the Agatha Christie mystery that gathers ten strangers together in a house on an island, strands them in a storm, and then kills them off one by one. [I'll also be the stage director. I'm hoping we get along.]

I’ve designed quite a few sets before, but this one feels like a particular challenge because we don’t really have the space, personnel, or budget to build a large, realistic box set, which seems to be what’s called for. According to the script, the story is set in a large gathering or living room in a mansion built on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with extensive windows on the upstage side that feature a set of French doors leading out onto a balcony, beyond which is a view of the sea. The plot requires that the room have three additional interior doors (dining room, study, and hallway to the rest of the house). There is a fireplace on one wall, whose mantel is decorated with a set of figurines that are important to the plot. The story takes place in the late 1930’s, and reference is made to rich owners having built the house just a few years earlier at great expense, so I’m picturing Art Deco as opposed to mahogany-paneled manor house.

Though our playing space is not large*, a realistic set would still require perhaps 50-60 l.f. of walls, with wall treatments and sconces and baseboards and crown moldings, three fancy interior doors with trim, and a large wall of “glass” (with French doors in the middle) looking out to the “sea.” In other words, huge, difficult, expensive.
That’s if I go realistic with it. Part of me is wondering if I can instead go representational, symbolic, or “theatrical” (for lack of a better term) and cut out what is not actually needed, and this is where I need your help (ideas).

I’ve looked online at other peoples’ designs, of course, and the vast majority of them are realistic, so I haven’t found that much inspiration. I guess the question is, can you do a box set play without a box set, or at least without a fully realized box set? [Choose another play, you say? Yes, well, the entire 9th grade reads “And Then There Were None” in English class, so there is great excitement about our doing it on stage.]

We don’t have real fly space, and most of the set will need to be downstage of the proscenium anyway, so I can’t (for example) simply hang windows and doors in space with no walls in between. More ideas:, paint the walls black and just have the doors/frames and rear window/sky and some Art Deco artwork on the walls in color? Or maybe those elements are all sort of floating in a neutral environment of black or red curtains (pipe and drape). I could also conceivably paint the deck something pretty vivid – faux marble or terrazzo or a big checkerboard of stone tile – to make it feel like it’s taking place on a giant playing board.

That's what I've thought up so far, and it's not exactly lighting my fire, so I’d love some more ideas to play with. PI do want to be clear that I am not looking for others to design my set for me. I’d just love some help in thinking outside "the box." I keep feeling like the flash of inspiration I need is out there somewhere – the kind that results in an exclamation of “Yes! That would be SO COOL!” I can take it from there.

Thanks in advance.

- Stuart Rosenthal

* Picture a cafeteria with a stage at one end. There is a proscenium opening (24’ w x 10’ h) with a 38” tall thrust stage platform (24’ w x 16’ d) parked in front of it. The stage house upstage of the plaster line is 32’ wide (i.e. 4’ “wings”) and 16’ deep, but anything staged beyond the proscenium tends to get lost so we tend to keep the actors on the thrust. Also, I can extend the thrust platform 4’ in any direction if needed.
@Stuart R To get you started; begin with any furnishings you MUST have then see how far you can get in your thinking without having to add anything additional: Possibly consider gobo's for windows, doors and differing times of day / angles of sun or moon, etcetera. I like your faux marble, terrazzo and / or stone checkerboard floor ideas.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I think you're on the right track; my best advice is to keep going. For me, anyway inspiration tends to come from grinding rather than in a flash. Keep researching the architecture / interior design / location / period / etc. that you want to represent. Lots of google image searches, and maybe even a trip to the library! I often find some detail in the research that jumps out at me, and that becomes the germ of an idea that I can build into a design.

BTW, I've seen this show in the round, so it definitely CAN be done without the box set!
 
back in the day, like 40 years ago, we did Miracle worker .. main room was a slightly raked platform wider downstage narrower upstage.. walls were random length studs... see through to cyc
a couple of doors are real, window frames with mullions, maybe even a light window treatment Furniture, table sideboard upstairs bedroom etc were all conventional. It lent sort of an eerie "this is a memory" quality to it, but it worked
 
Not sure if this is still helpful, but I designed a production of The Glass Menagerie about a decade ago. We used scrim with a painted stencil pattern as walls and it worked well to create the space. No idea if that's an appropriate choice for your production, but fabric or other soft material can be an economical alternative to hard flats, plus it allows for great lighting possibilities.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

P.S.- We made all that brick from scratch, which I do not recommend for your production!
 
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Not sure if this is still helpful, but I designed a production of The Glass Menagerie about a decade ago. We used scrim with a painted stencil pattern as walls and it worked well to create the space. No idea if that's an appropriate choice for your production, but fabric or other soft material can be an economical alternative to hard flats, plus it allows for great lighting possibilities.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

P.S.- We made all that brick from scratch, which I do not recommend for your production!
@manuallyfocused Could not view any of your linked photo's, Google was demanding I needed to sign in and join something. (Which I elected NOT to do)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
Viewing and posting from north of Donald's walls.
 
Thanks @RonHebbard! I tried fixing the links, let me know if they work now.
@manuallyfocused All three are still asking me to sign in which I again declined to do. I'm still running Win XP with a manual crank on the side of my tower and an abacus. I have a new computer being built and anticipate migrating to it in approximately two weeks. Thanks for your efforts.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Ok, I give up on the links. Do these show up? Thanks again @RonHebbard, don't think it was your manual crank, though that abacus sounds awfully suspect.
Mountain Playhouse- Glass Menagerie 4.JPG Mountain Playhouse- Glass Menagerie 3.jpg Mountain Playhouse- Glass Menagerie 1.JPG
 
Ok, I give up on the links. Do these show up? Thanks again @RonHebbard, don't think it was your manual crank, though that abacus sounds awfully suspect.
View attachment 17724 View attachment 17725 View attachment 17726
@manuallyfocused YES, agreed and thank you for your extra efforts. My mind's taken back to two productions with two different amateur groups in the 1960's and 1970's with scrim walls, Spindler Sauppe projection dissolves / Kodak Carousel projectors and a very small diameter cone speaker hidden out of sight within the gramophone's horn playing our choice of music tracks with the tone heavily EQ'd by one channel of my Orban 622B and the Orban's second channel simultaneously suitably EQ'ing the same mono track for the house speakers covering the patrons. This permitted us to begin playing the track as the last cut of our pre-show with a suitably EQ'd track then slowly fade the house speakers down and out simultaneously with the lights as they transitioned from our house lit with our set preset and the same track continuing to play in flawless synchronization as our stage lights smoothly evolved into Act 1, Scene 1 and our cast quietly entered.
Thanks again for your efforts, your photo's and refreshing my memories.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 

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