From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett Subject: WINTER'S TALE set design To: arden@rice.edu Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 11:04:57 -0600 (CST) Cc: kasia@rice.edu, kindra@rice.edu (Kindra Welch), karinlee@io.com, kkross@craftmier.com Quoth Katarzyna Joanna Mucha: > hey! this guy sounds excited about this. i think you might want to get > together with him. do you want the 3 of us to meet sometime? > > > i would love to design the set for you... just e mail me the details, and > > send me a script (at wiess, or have karen give it to me) and i'll look it > > over. i have never read the script before, i'm sorry to say, but i'll > > read it as soon as i get it and have sketches for you as soon as > > possible.... do you have any ideas already??? concepts???? etc... please > > get back to me as soon as possible so i can get right on this.... Jason -- I like your userid! The "Arden" editions of Shakespeare are my favorites. :-) Kasia -- I still need those Baker Commons measurements, particularly if we're to discuss all this with Jason. I'm the director for this year's Baker Shakespeare, and Kasia just forwarded me the above letter. I have several ideas about the set (we have had to develop it to a fair extent, just due to the point we're at in rehearsals!), but I am no carpenter, and would certainly appreciate the benefit of someone with your ability and expertise. If you're still interested after this letter, let me know and I'll add you to the production mailing list (bs-l@io.com) and set up a face-to-face gathering of you, Kasia, and me. I know you haven't read the play -- pardon if I gloss some of the plot below. Karin Kross (one of our Assistant Directors) and I have discussed staging the play as a movement from a very hierarchical, autocratic society (in which Leontes can order affairs as he sees fit despite his evident impairment by jealousy) to a more evenly ordered, cooperative arrangement more open to consensus. That's the English-major-ish end of things: here's the more practical stuff, as dicussed by Karin, Kindra Welch (our other A.D.) and me. I'll forward it to them, since this is its first appearance in print. We'll be using a bridge-stage (audience on two sides, performance arena spanning the room) with a very simple set, both because I believe in having the actors set the scene and because I abhor long blackouts to change out set-pieces. It'll be in Baker Commons, slightly off-center so as not to block the kitchen entrance but to enable us to use the door to the College Secretary's office (and thence to the outside) as a third entrance (the others are the long aisles leading to Baker's Outer Commons and the Tower & Library). The stage will _not_ be elevated more than a single step above the Commons floor: we need to avoid blocking access and keep lines of vision open, so probably the surface will be unlegged platforms (we will soon be inventorying how many 4x8 platforms have survived the recent flood of Baker's basement storage areas). At the secretary-office end, we have a large platform, with inset steps leading up to a massive throne, built in place (that autocrat thing!). This will be covered by a dyed/painted tarp so it can turn into a moss- covered boulder for the country scenes. To either side of the steps, we've discussed having dowels hung on nails bearing two-sided banners: one the rich burgundy of Sicilia (the country under consideration), the other perhaps a grey or brown (so it can be reversed for our country scenes). One banner will cover an unfaced area of the platform, with access clear back to the office doorway. This is our Jail (a dank, low hole in the ground), as well as the den of the infamous Bear (as in "Exit pursued by a...," yes this is THAT Shakespeare play. :-) At the other end (towards Will Rice) is a lower platform. It's the "dock" (prisoner area) for our trial scene, and should be high enough so that our Queen Hermione (about 5'6" or so, I'll guess) ends up eye-to-eye with the seated King Leontes (who is long and gangly) on the throne opposite. No need for holes, traps, or anything on this side, just height variation for a bit of visual relief and to provide some seating surfaces, etc. I've had the idea of trying for a circular platform (I know that makes carpenters blanch -- wait a bit!), perhaps faced with slats with space between rather than curved luann. We thus get a more rustic look and a more open feeling than for the massive rectangular prism of the throne. I have a letter in to Greg Marshall asking if there's any chance we might get the cable spools they're currently using in wiring the Baker Institute for Public Policy (I don't think they recycle those....), since that might make an admirable substructure. To either side of the circle (or semi- circle, depending on whether we adapt or built the thing) are probably a pair of lower, shallower platforms to provide a definite end to the stage. Let's see if I can pull off some ridiculous ASCII art here: O___________L__L______________ | | | B| | | "O" is the door to the secretary's office. B| L_ | "C" is kinda large, but that's a throne. CC |||| / \| The lines in front of it are steps. C |||| | | "B" is the Jail/Bear hole-in-platform-face. CC |||| \__/| The brackets above and below are our aisles, | | | which don't need to be built up, on, or | | | in at all (purely for reference). ______L___________________L__| The width of this diagram represents the | | entire width of Baker Commons: all audience are seated "above" or "below" the diagram. Wiess is below the drawing (appropriate! Oops, Hanszen bias showing there.... :-), Allen Center above, if we're trying to place it within Baker. And, yes, that's a big open space in the middle: we need lots of room for our actors to speak Shakespearean verse, and even do a dance in the middle of the play. I know this is probably a more complete design than many directors present to set designers. My intent is not to offend, or to "steal your thunder": Karin (A.D.) and I just have certain ideas of how we'd like the play to, well, play. But we certainly DO need someone with a practical bent who can make suggestions, realize problems before we encounter them in construction, and help plan out some of the details. And there are things I'm leaving out: I have little idea about color, for instance. I've thought of going for just a neutral greyish/brown that would serve both as stone for court and drab countryside, such that it's our costumes provide the liveliness. But you may have a better idea. If you'd like to look at a copy of the play (which I warn you is a late one, and full of rather dense rhetoric!), it's available from the Baker Shakespeare web page at, fittingly, http://www.rice.edu/BakerShakespeare. I can be reached via this email account, or by home phone at 776-8387. Our rehearsal tonight (from 7-10) is in Mech Lab 251. I don't know where we'll be next week, but I'm sure Mike Simon will tell me eventually. :-) A rehearsal schedule is also available at the web site. ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------ Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user, http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar, Email: jlockett@io.com | fuit." -- Seneca | actor and director.