A Midsummer Night's Dream - Set Design

Today has been a rather wonderful one.  It started with sleeping in a bit, followed by going to Starbucks for breakfast and studying until I had to go to Woyzeck tech.  I had a raspberry white mocha and a piece of low fat (or reduced fat [not sure of which]) cinnamon roll coffee cake.  Delightful.  During my indulgent breakfast I worked on some play analysis work on The Mystery of Irma Vep.  Then I did some work for my design for the set of the same play.  (Yes, that's right, I decided to try to take it easy and, for scenography, design the set for the play that I chose to analyze in play analysis.  When I decided that...I didn't realize how complex of a set Irma Vep was going to be...and due to necessity, I might add, not lofty ambitions...or not solely lofty ambitions.)

Anyway, then I went to Woyzeck tech for the first four hours (video and such to come later) and left for dinner and more play analysis work.  Watched a few episodes of Buffy to unwind during/after dinner (more than I should have) and then really got to work.  I've been working on a simple analysis of Tennessee Williams' use of forwards in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  I looked up from my script after finishing a section of it and saw my Midsummer Night's Dream model sitting on the arm of my couch.  This reminded me that I'd not put up my design photos for that, as I'd told people I would...so without further ado, here they are!

First of all, what you see below are my rough sketches for how I wanted things to be.

To the left is the finished model for my design.  1/8"=1'.  The circle at the back of the stage is an abstract moon.  The moon appears on almost every page of Midsummer...I'm not kidding.  So my first inspiration was the moon/moonlight/dark-light.  As many know, much of the show takes place in a forest...hence the trees.  While the trees may seem unfinished, they are not.  They are metal for a reason.  I didn't want to set the show in one place or another...like Athens or the forest.  I wanted a unit set that could transform into both...or anything.  So the trees are meant to be metal...not urban jungle, just metal.  I wanted the moon to be always present in my design but I wanted a citylike harshness to break up the solidity.  For that I turned to stained glass and leaded windows for inspiration.  The moon "flat," if you will (though it is way more than a flat), is backlit to give it that translucent glow.

The upright moon is actually constructed so that some of the individual panels will open up to facilitate the entrance of the fairies.  That being the case, there is a 3' deep support system for the actors using the panels, and permanently attached ladders so that they can access each panel safely (The ladders will be seen with the backlighting, but that's cool...this is theatre...we all know people can't actually fly).

To the left are the final renderings for the stage.  The stage is essentially a light box.  Under the translucent floor (similar to the moon) are projectors to create the ground that the actors tread upon...thus, quickly and magically transforming the environment from Athens to the forest (the quickness needed for good theatre and the magic necessary for Midsummer).  The colors for the Athens stage were inspired by a photo I found of the Parthenon and the forest stage was inspired by forests...whatever forests you want.




Finally, just in case anybody REALLY wanted to see it...here is the complete ground plan (except some of the title block got cut out...my apologies...I can't figure out my scanner so I took some of these photos in a hurry before I turned everything in).

Peace and Love to You All!
LT