A Streetcar Named Desire
(scenery design)

Context:

This production was designed for our main production space The Wells Theater.  The building was built in 1990 when our student body was nearing a low of 600 students. Today, with 1300 and growing, the 144-seat theatre is too small and a challenge for any designer.  Although the space is extremely intimate with only five rows, the abnormally wide seating area provides very difficult sightlines.  As the director/scene designer/lighting designer, I knew I would have my work cut out for me, particularly with the necessity of providing a cityscape in a modified proscenium theatre with an opening of only 14’x34’. 

Description:

One of the few assets of the theatre space for a production of this scale, was the vertical dimensions of the audience space.  With a clear airspace of about 40’, I knew I needed to find a way of exploiting it.  By moving the second story of the New Orleans house in front of the proscenium and by employing some forced perspective to the balcony design, I was able to simulate the scale of an outdoor environment.  I decided to go with a realistic interior set inside a world of theatricalism.  This was particularly enhanced when I used very saturated colors in the exterior lighting design to reflect the world of Bourbon Street.  By including a partial ceiling in the interior, the general lighting proved to be a problem.  In response, I incorporated a wash of fresnels into the underside of the balcony. I liked the texture which designer George Hopkins used in the film version, but I wasn’t sure how to bring the black and white world into a live production.  After some experimentation, I settled on an overall hue of reds (to reflect the seedy world of the French Quarter) and I applied it to an artificial stucco wall with a wainscoting of anaglypta.  Another challenge to address was the scripted occurrence of streetpeople upstage behind a scrimmed wall.  In order to squeeze all of the requisite scenery of two specific rooms in a space of 34 feet, I had to push all of the walls very far upstage which both eliminated crossover space for street crowds as well as distancing them from the audience.  I instead elected to perform all street scenes in front of the set—literally in the laps of the audience which proved a successful means of distracting the audience from the numerous scene changes which occurred only several feet in front of them.