theatre set

Play that Goes Wrong Set Build

The Set Build of my career… that’s how I felt about this one. It took twice as long as the average large set build. Most of the first 2 weeks was me just scratching my head and trying to figure out how to do stuff, but eventually it started to come together!

Here are some photos of the build and a couple of the finished set. Other relevant credits: Set Design by Jeff K, directed by Kerri N, Lighting by Nigel B, props by Shannon T.

This was a large undertaking for our community theatre (Gallery 7 Theatre). There were a lot of considerations, such as not damaging our venue rental, and the fact that we had to strike during tech week for a council meeting, so we had to be able to disassemble things fairly easily. The designer, Jeff, gave me some sketches on graph paper and I plugged them into Sketchup to make sure everything would fit. He also made a great model for the actors to reference.

It still fell to me, however, to make everything work. I attended several rehearsals and provided some rehearsal set pieces such as a doorframe, clock, and chaise. Stage management was terrific at communicating needs such as which way a door would open to hit an actor, how high the windowsill should be, etc.

Another challenge was the platform that falls. Gallery 7 put out a call and found a great welder, Arne L, who volunteered his time to design a steel structure using basic measurements and youtube videos that I sent him. He gave me the costs for steel and based on that we were able to request a slightly bigger set materials budget.

Here are a bunch of photos of the build!

Here is how I made the curtain bar fall – no magnets – just hinges, pins, and gravity. It worked pretty well overall, although not exactly perfectly!

I don’t want to give away too many more secrets, but here are some more things!

At some point we moved everything to a larger shop to paint, and also test some things:

And then we loaded the whole thing into the venue and held our breath while the actors started to play!

It was an intensive tech week while we figured out how to weight the platform, get all the tricks to work at once (there were 2 actor ASMs plus 3 actual ASMs), and fix all the things that kept breaking. So glad it worked well, had a successful run, and no one got (seriously) injured!! What a ride!

The following photos are official Gallery 7 rehearsal photos by Dianna Lewis. They are copyrighted and may not be edited or distributed without permission. Enjoy!

Prince Caspian Set Design and Build

Prince Caspian played at Gallery 7 Theatre recently. Here are a few pictures of the set design and build process.

It started with a meeting with the director and other designers, reading the script, and coming up with some sketches and ideas which eventually formed the set design.

The forest was built with several different kinds of trees (including by the actors themselves, which were creativily portrayed by the costume designer). I borrowed an idea from Youtube about making the tree canopy out of PVC pipe. I had some scrap ABS pipe and scrounged some other pipes elsewhere; the biggest cost was the 3000 zip ties. The flexible trunks were made of flexible drainage pipe and the big moveable tree was a regular set piece on a riser.

There were also the usual set piece suspects – boxes and furniture…

sheet vinyl flooring painted and clear coated

The big tree was a big undertaking. My dad framed it and I covered it with coroplast and spray foam and a few fibreoptic lights.

Load in took awhile, mostly to hang everything from the fly system at Abby Arts. The techs were great.

And then the lighting designer got to work his magic!

Set by Andrew Potts, Lighting by Ken Hildebrandt, Directed by Gabe Kirkley, Costumes by Kelsey Cleave, Props by Dianna Lewis. For Gallery7Theatre.com.

Set Build: Midsummer

TWU’s last show will be A Midsummer Night’s Dream in March. I was contracted for set construction carpentry, and spent a couple of weeks at their workshop in January. It was good working with the TD and the few students that are left in the small production class. (Set Design is by Alaia Hamer)

It’s my second time building for this particular show, but the nice thing about theatre is that every time is different!

Here are a few pictures of the build in progress. I didn’t get as much finished as I would like; too many set builds happening at once and I ran out of time. I left it in the Technical Director’s hands, and hope that they can finish everything!

Tickets to the show should be available from TWU’s website in late February or early March. www.twu.ca

Set Build: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley

A small set built and run by Gallery 7 right before Christmas was this little gem, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. Due to venue constraints (MCA Abbotsford), our set had to be struck twice after load-in, so we kept it fairly simple. Design is by Jeff Kiers, and it was directed by Sarah Green.

We had a library/entrance door on stage right, and a living room area on stage left.

It was a lovely Christmas play; I attended closing night on Dec 23 with my daughter.

Set Build – Murder on the Orient Express

The latest show for Gallery 7 is now playing. The set was a large one with a few complications. Following are some photos of the build.

Set Design including paint is by Jeff Kiers and Director is Kate Muchmore Woo.

Jeff’s creative design was shared as a model:

He also provided basic dimensions and (most importantly) fly line locations for the 3 flies.

I realized that to build this I would need to draw this out to make sense of it. There are a few moving parts.

Then I divided it up into parts: risers, steps, walls, flies, observation deck, benches.

Here are some pictures of the flies. I made them in 8×12 sections with plenty of cross-bracing to help eliminate sag. (They are 24 feet long) One fly has 3 working doors so had to be structurally sound.

There is a wall that flips down to become a floor for scene changes. It is heavy as it is made of 3 sheets of 3/4″ plywood.

Jeff painted the outside of the train, and my assistant carpenter Karen worked on walls.

Things started to come together but there was still so much to do!

I was treated to a beautiful double rainbow at the workshop one January afternoon…

Load-in day at the venue came and with several volunteers we got the basic set together so that lighting design could commence.

It’s always nice to see things start to come together under the lights!

Set Build – Baskerville

Another set build! They just don’t stop. I guess that’s why I’m so behind on my other work!

This one is for Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Story, playing at Abbey Arts in March. See Gallery 7 for more details.

Set Design is by Jeff Kiers.

Here are a few pictures of parts of the set in production (1.5 weeks). The stage itself is relatively simple, but there are quite a few pieces that are flown in or wheeled in. It is ready for painting!

Set Build – Bright Star

I was contracted by TWU to build the base set for their upcoming Spring Musical. I wasn’t able to commit to the entire project, but I did give them a full week to get the balcony and stage going. I had a lot of help from the students at various times as well. (Design credit – V. Salim)

The set design is very creative and I look forward to seeing it after the TWU Production Team is done with all the scrims, paint, flats, doors, and other finishing touches!

Bright Star runs March 15-April 2 at SAMC Langley.

Last Train to Nibroc set

Gallery 7 recently completed their first in-person live theatre show in 18 months. It was called Last Train to Nibroc. Here are some pictures of set-building and load-in..

First, here is a portion of the model made by Set Designer Jeff Kiers. It is to-scale and the large set is based off of it.

Some challenges I had were related to scene changes. There were 3 scenes and no intermission. So set changes had to happen quickly (2 mintues or less). The pieces were large, odd-sized, and complicated. They were on casters, had brakes, flies, stairs, hinges, etc…The ASMs did a great job of working with all of it.

Overall it was a great show!