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Author | Message |
Sammy Coleman
Walk-On ![]() ![]() Joined: 6/11/05 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
![]() Posted: 6/11/05 at 1:36am |
Hello all! Well, I've agreed to direct a play next season at our local community theater (before reading the play, mind you.). The play is "Dearly Departed" - hilarious!!! I think I will truly enjoy this experience. However, I am worried about being able to design a set with 18 scene changes! If anyone has participated, or read and may have ideas, about the set design of this play, please provide. Any suggestions/feedback will be deeply (no pun intended) appreciated. Thank you!!! |
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Aimee
Celebrity ![]() ![]() Joined: 8/31/04 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 156 |
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Having not read that play, I can only offer some general advice. Do you NEED all those scene changes? If you can get by with less, you'll be better off. If you do need all of them, make them simple. you don't have to have a complete room to get the idea acrooss that you are in a living room or outside in a garden. Some times just a few pieces will do the trick. Great for those short scenes. we recently did "Leader of the Pack" Pretty much for every song we had a scene change. a few benches and a metal archway, some creative lighting and we were in the chapel, or a step stool, a chair, and a full length mirror and that was the bedroom. Sometimes less is more. Just a few ideas,hope that helps abit. Good luck! |
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Aimee
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NickH.
Player ![]() ![]() Joined: 10/05/04 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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Shakespeare troups are notorious for solving problems of quick scene
changes, as the old Bard was extremely generous with the number of
scenes he wrote in his plays. If you have the chance to attend any
Shakespeare production, you will get lots of ideas about solving
problems of scene changes.
Most often, a ''unit'' set will do. Basically, a set with several levels and moveable small flats, flags and gobos, and an inventive lighting designer can do wonders for plays that demand lots of scene changes. |
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If all the world is a stage, what am I doing in the wings?
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Christine
Walk-On ![]() Joined: 7/15/05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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I was the assistant director for this show 2 years ago - here's what we did. Looking at the stage from a bird's eye view: 12 o'clock - Mama's kitchen on an elevated flat. Remove kitchen table/chairs - wheel in partial wall with window - it becomes the outside scene where Raybud and Junior sit and drink and talk in Act 2. 9 o clock - Marguerite's Living room - on a slightly raised platform 3 o'clock - slightly raised platform - Royce's bedroom - use a fold up cot to get it out of there quick Main stage area in the middle serves as living room, church, radio station The elevated flat areas have minimal set changes if at all - so the major set changes occur in the central portion of the stage. The elevated areas only have to hold 1-3 actors (Mama's kitchen has 3 at once) - so they can be small, leaving your main stage area in the middle for the scenes with the entire cast. |
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Shatcher
Celebrity ![]() ![]() Joined: 2/21/05 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 251 |
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I do not know the play but if you are going to have lots of scene changes make sure to give your crew plenty of time to reherse. scene changes that are to long can bring the pace of the show way down. I did No Way to Treat a Lady a few years back. we did all scene changes in view of the audience during the action of the play. we would change a scene up stage while the actors played a scene somewhere else. crew in all black inclueing hats. we spent a lot of time getting it down and we got to be really fast.
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Topper
Celebrity ![]() ![]() Joined: 1/27/05 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 543 |
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I was in a production of Kaufman & Hart's "Once In a
Lifetime" which involved a large cast and numerous scene changes/locations. However, the sets were very minimal. It was a sprawling tale about the early days of Hollywood and the onset of sound (think "Singin' in the Rain" without the music). Because there were upwards of twenty actors in the cast, the director decided to facilitate the scene changes by making them more "cinematic" and using many of the cast as "extras." For example: the play starts in a one-room apartment and moves to a railroad car. As the music came up, actors dressed as Pullman Redcaps moved off the furniture and brought on the train benches. Another dressed as a Conductor simply walked across the stage, checking his pocket watch and motioning two more extras dressed as passengers. A Sailor kissed his girlfriend goodbye, etc. From the train to the Grand Hotel: The RedCaps moved off the benches as a BellHop carried some luggage across the stage followed by the Same Two Passengers we saw earlier. A Hotel Maid walked across with a mop. A Maitre D' and Cigarette Girl crossed the stage in animated conversation, etc, etc. Not only did these vignettes cover the scene changes, but they helped move the play along and solidified in the audience's mind the locations before a stick of furniture was set. The costumes were all drawn from stock and the actors playing the extra parts all found their own bits of business to occupy the few seconds they were on stage. The possibilities seemed endless! For backstage at the studio, Two Stagehands merely carried a ladder. An actor in an elaborate cowboy outfit walked by studying his "lines" from a script. A nosy Photographer got thrown out by Studio Security, etc. It was a great technique and could easily apply to any production! I plan to steal it myself someday. |
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"None of us really grow up. All we ever do is learn how to behave in public." -- Keith Johnstone
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