Summer Theatre Season -Set Designer Vaughn Davis on creating the perfect setting for The Drawer Boy
Thursday, August 04, 2011 |
| Carpenters Michelle Inksetter and Stephen Nixon |
First thing you have to think about when designing a show in the Studio Theatre at the Rose Theatre is how to arrange the room. The space has more of a Keystone shape so to maximize seating, there aren’t many options. We’ve decided to go with a stadium seating layout for “The Drawer Boy”. This lets us use the entire back wall to hang a sky drop which makes the playing area seem much bigger than it actually is.
Once we’ve decided on that, it’s time to create the playing space! The biggest Challenge on this show was to create a playing area that was large enough to incorporate the inside and outside of an old farm house while keeping the mood intimate for the actors and for the audience. This was achieved by creating a big contrast between both locations. The inside of the house is built on an elevated riser with solid cut away walls and a cut away roof that completely defines the living space. Once you step outside onto the porch, the cutaway porch railings push your eye towards Stage Left and UP which makes the sky drop and the tree seem to extended up past the ceiling of the theatre which (in theory) makes the outside space seem huge, but doesn’t affect the intimate feeling of the inside space.
Of course none of what is seen on the stage would ever happen without our amazing carpenters (Stephen Nixon and Michelle Inksetter) and our extremely talented scenic artists (Jaspal Birdi and Danielle Demeny).
Although there are challenges in designing a show in the studio space…they are challenges that make the job fun and interesting for everyone involved.
-Vaughn Davis
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