A Few Good Men Set Design and Build

Gallery 7 recently closed their production of A Few Good Men. Here are some pictures of the design, build, and finished set.

Design: this set felt sort of easy. The layout was fairly clear in the director’s head and I was able to translate that into drawings early on, which saved a lot of time. It was also a simple, abstract set with zero complicated set changes – just the movement of tables and chairs fluidly throughout the show.

However one thing that was a necessity with this set was the quality. Sometimes as the builder I do get away with some “shoddy” work: handles showing in the ends of risers, beaten up plywood covered with six layers of paint, etc. But this play is about Marines, and they don’t tolerate shoddiness… so I spent a lot of time considering how to make the risers appear to be suspended in mid-air–it took some extra construction and masking–and just generally being careful to make everything look crisp and clean.

It also required a fair number of chairs, and I wanted them all to match – so when I found a style that we liked on FB Marketplace, I bought as many as I could (nine). We also wanted 3 matching lightweight tables. So I bought them secondhand and modified them all to be the same size, colour, and style. And of course going with this exacting theme, they all needed to be refinished and stained the same colour!

Once I had the furniture ready, I gave it to the cast to use, and focused on the columns and fence, which were fun artsy projects!

I was able to taper the ionic columns using clear corrugated roofing. Of course there was no way they would meet in the back, but we didn’t need to see the backs. The toppers were a combination of dollar store plates, plywood, cereal box cardboard, and foam.

The fence was plastic fencing, PVC pipe, rubber barbed wire, and homemade razor wire (galvanized wire and duct tape). I wish I could have made the fence look taller or more imposing, but I was restricted partly by budget, and also by the fact that my research of Gitmo’s fencing actually looked pretty much like what I made.

Then it was time for load in and a long day assembling and bracing risers. We had a few great helpers!