Alyssa Ivory

The Play That Goes Wrong

As Scenic Designer for this show it was my job to create a set that would fit within our budget and capabilities. I spent lots of time researching colors for a 1920's mansion that aligne with the show. But most of my time was spent at the drawing board. This enjoyable farce was one heck of a show to design!

The Problems Presented

Falling

The script calls for a many set pieces to fall. Namely, the dog painting, the mantle, the door, the hook, the shield, the barometer, the curtians, all of the facing of the walls, and one of the columns. When designing the stage, I had to take into consideration all of these falling set pieces. I included a floor to protect our stage deck as well as give a cohesive feeling to the different intricate set pieces. Each wall was designed uniquely since every wall presented its own nuances. No one design could be used more then once.

Visual Gags

On top of everything falling, there are some practical effects that this show calls for such as a revolving bookcase. The show also calls for a grandfather clock with a door in the front, large enough to fit a person inside of it, but also be light enough to be carried by two people. This show also requires two doors that can come off their hinges. One that gets removed while the door is closed and another door that leans towards an actor "on its own" then gets taken off.

The Solutions

For both door frames, I used simalir structures with minor differences. Two 2by4 columns with a 2by4 at the top. This acted as the framework and did not fall. We then cut luan into rectangular shapes and added 1by3 supports to the facing, stragically lining them up so they wouldn't hit the 2by4 framework.

The window frame was made similarly to the doors. The same 2by4 framework but the luan was cut into 2 "C" shapes then supported by 1by3.

The clock flat is similar to the door flat but a smaller slimmer door. The clock flat has a false back that allows actors to leave the clock without the audience seeing.

The bookcase went through the most redesigns. My first idea was to make the length 48 inches but when it rotates 90 degrees, acting like a doorway, the opening would be less then 24 inches and that was too small for the pre-existing blocking. So I gave 72 inches a try, with a gap a little less then 36 inches. It would work comfortably as a doorway but now it was too long for the stage. Lastly I tried 60 inches. This created a 32 inch door way and fit on the stage. After deciding on the dimensions, I designed the bookcase with a fake cabinet on the bottom, three shelves, a pipe screwed into the floor that runs through the middle with hog troughs covering it from the audience and casters attahced to plywood that could swivel.

The fireplace and sword flats have similar framework, made from 2by4. They differ in their supports. The sword flat has three 1by3 support beams that run straight up and down the luan while the fireplace flat has a more intricate design. There is a hole in the fireplace flat for the faux fire that our lighting team asked for because they wanted to mimic real fire light. And so we removed the middle portion of the fireplace flat and created a buffer between the painted fire place and the flat. Because of this we had to support the luan differently due to the fact that the top became more weight bearing.

(If the numbers and blueprints interest you theres an image carsoul below that has a blueprint for every set piece)

This is how we preformed the safe and successful falling. Screwed into wood on the bottom of the luan and screwed into the deck floor is a piano hinge. This piano hinge is hidden when the facing is up so the shock gag is not revealed and it ensures that the luan will fall in the same place everytime making it safe for the actors on stage.

This is a C-clamp which is used to hold the door that "falls" towards the actor secured to the framework and the rest of the set. The door is hinged to a long peice of 1by4 and the clamp holds that 1by4 to the 2by4 framework.

These are hinge pins which are used for the door that needs to be removed while the door is closed. This initally presented a huge problem because the easiest way to take off a door is to remove the hinges from the support, but the hinges can only be accesed when the door is open and for this gag the door had to be closed. The orignal hinge pins were removed and longer ones were added so that the actor could sneakily remove them and then the door would be free.

Here is how we kept the falling luan up, every wall has hook and eye with one piece attached to the frame and another attached to the luan, when its time for the walls to fall the hook is released and the wall falls safely to the ground.

The Clock

The fake grandfather clock is made entirely from scratch. I used a rectangular base, and then added supports and 2 sides, and a long piece of luan acting as the door with hinges on the inside. Then with spare moulding and some EVO foam I asked our student scenic painter to add some decorative pieces to really sell the illusion of a grandfather clock, and not just a box. They also painted a pendlum on front.

My process

Step One

I did a rough sketch of how I wanted all the elements placed in our set. My goal here was to get the idea out of my head and onto paper. It may not be evident here but from the start I knew that due to the shows nature of everything going wrong, for the comedy of this show to really land with the audience I realized early on that it was crucial for the set to have a regal and almsot majestic feeling to contrast the slapstick destruction of the set.

Step Two

Here my goal was to cleanup my sketch and make a concise drawing to present my ideas to the class. When adding detail, I made decisions here pretending there was no budget or other physical restraints. My goal was to let my creative ideas flow freely. I find that artists best work is done with a free flowing mindset.

Step Three

After doing some research into the color palettes and wallpaper designs of the time period, I added color to give the drawing a finished look and presented it to my director and class. My goal with this drawing was to make a beautiful set.

Step Four

Here the set looks very different, after combing through the script again I realized that the window needed to move to the center for blocking purposes and reshaped. On top of this I added spacers for crew members to hide in during the wall falls. Here is where I decided to put a floor in to save the stage deck.

Step Five

Here I added the coloring that I planned for the set. The wallpaper in the squared-off locations reflects the 1920s time period. Since Greek style inspired 1920s architecture, I used Mediterranean influences in the centerpieces of our arches.

Step Six

Due to time constraints some pieces had to be cut from what I orginally designed, but as all things, this set is adaptable. I added a chair line which is a very popular design choice from the late Victorian age. And I moved the wallpaper above the chairline and in more scarcity since wallpaper designs with great distance between them more accuretly represents the technology available in the 1920s

Groundplan

After deciding on the look and placement of all the set pieces, I made the ground plan to give to all the other crews so that they knew what the set would look like before our tech hold. This also served as the basis for all the set piece designs.

Above are my drawings of each set piece. Every piece follows a similar structure of a full sheet with 1by3 supporting it and a 2by4 frame.

Here are my rejected designs, these didn't make the cut due for either aesthetic or practical reasons.

Below is a timelapse of my entire process

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse