Move Over Mrs. Markham

Stage West, Calgary
Director: Bernard Cuffling
Set and Lighting Design by Douglas J. Rathbun

This British sex farce was written in the 1970's. The play is set in a very elegant top floor London flat, belonging to Philip and Joanna Markham. Philip is a straight-laced publisher of children's books, and he shares an office with his partner, Henry Lodge, on the ground floor. Philip had reluctantly agreed to let Henry borrow his apartment for the evening to 'entertain' his latest girlfriend. At the same time Joanna Markham had been persuaded by Linda Lodge to let her borrow the apartment so she can entertain her lover. What nobody knows is that the Interior Designer who had been decorating the apartment for the past three months had decided that this was the night he and the au pair girl would try out the new round bed! Not surprisingly, chaos and confusion ensue!

The director decided to set the play in modern day by removing many of the very dated references. The action takes place in the Markham's top floor London flat which is currently being redecorated by Alistair, the interior decorator, much to the chagrin of Phillip Markham. Two rooms must be visible to the audience, the livingroom and the bedroom. Entrances to the livingroom are from the study, the aux pair's bedroom and the main entrance hall. There is a walk in bar off the livingroom and the entrance to the bedroom. There is a bathroom off the bedroom. Much of the main action and comic business centres on the entrance to the bedroom and the walk-in bar area.

Scenery Design

Floor Plan Sketch

My concept for the design of the scenery centred around the fact that, although Philip hates the redesign of his flat, the designer, Alistair, is a very chic, upscale and competent designer. The characters comment on the design of the livingroom and bedroom which have already been completed. Alistar has started working on Philip's study. Philip comments that the livingroom looks like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and the bedroom looks like a "pink nightmare". I decided to make the livingroom as modern, elegant and chic as possible to the point that it makes Philip uncomfortable to live in. I decided the bedroom would be so pink and feminine that Philip would definitely NOT feel he has any place in it. The only sanctuary in this flat for Philip would be his study. I designed the hallway to his study to indicate it is the only place he has to himself.

Perspective Sketch

The bedroom was on a raised platform where the "fourth wall" was "removed" so we could see the action inside. I left a small wall section in front of the raised platform and created a curved header that framed and suggested the invisible wall.

After a number of thumbnail sketch discussions with the director, I created a sketch floorplan and a perspective pencil sketch. I showed the director some samples of interior design colours and the types of furnishings I was considering.

Then I created a 3D model of the scenery using Google Sketchup 8. The model can be rotated, zoomed, panned and tilted and video fly-throughs are possible to give the best indication of how the space will work once built and setup.

Sketchup 3D Model of Scenery Design

 Once approved, I created the scale blueprint plans to give to the Technical Director and the scenic carpenters to guide them through the process of constructing the scenery.

Front Elevation Construction Drawing

Props and Paint Design
As the scenery designer, I am responsible for directing the painting of the scenery as well as the dressing of the set with furniture and set dressings. I coordinated with the paint/props technician at Stage West for the purchase and acquisition of all the furniture and set dressings required.
I created paint renderings and submitted paint swatched to indicate the paint treatment and colours required for the various set walls. I wanted the livingroom to have a high contrast granite wall treatment. It was based in a middle dove grey and then spattered with white and black paint. 

Black Granite Swatch

  I wanted the bedroom walls to be painted with a flat pink paint and then rag-rolled with semi-gloss latex glaze to give it a flocked wallpaper effect. There was also a floral pattern pink border across the top.

Bedroom Border Swatch

I sent the props technician out to find furniture within a range of styles. He would travel around town and send me photos from his phone of various pieces for my approval.

One of the livingroom chairs

Building the Model
After the approval of the design based on the renderings and the submission of the working drawings, I set about creating a scale model of the set design which would be used by the director, stage manager and actors in rehearsal and the scenic artists for reference.

Scale Model of the Scenery

Creating the Wall Art
I had in my mind a bold abstract artwork for the main wall in the livingroom that would compliment the ultra-chic interior design but also be bold enough that it would certainly have caused Philip headaches. I was not able to find anything that was large enough to suit, so I decided to paint it myself. I mapped out my idea for the design in scale. The painting would be created by fastening four 2'x2' square 1" thick framed painting canvasses together, painting the design on the canvas and then pulling the frames apart and positioning them on the wall two or three inches from each other. The upper left corner would be mostly red and the bottom right corner totally black.

Paint frames screwed together. Scale design on top of frame.

Painting in progress...

Painting complete still screwed together and resting on its side.

Lighting Design
The lighting design began with discussion with the director and viewing a few blocking run rehearsals. The action of the play in continuous, beginning late afternoon and continuing into the evening all on a summer day in London, England. The main motivational source of daylight is the large bedroom window upstage left with an exterior sky view. I decided I would add some wall sconce lighting fixtures to the bedroom that can add motivational sources for the evening scenes.

The Stage West theatre is a major challenge for stage lighting. With a ceiling grid only 13' off the stage floor, the lighting angles to the stage are less than ideal and make even illumination a major challenge. The Technical Director had recently purchased a number of new ETC Source4 Jr 30-50 Zooms which made area front lighting much easier.

After making a list of lighting requirements and purposes, I took the 3D drawings from Sketchup and imported them into my 3D lighting design program WYSIWYG. Once I had completed and converted the 3D scenery (there is always some redrawing necessary in conversion) I created lighting areas and placed lighting fixtures.

WYSIWYG 3D Lighting Software

WYSIWYG 3D View

The process of adding fixtures, colour, pattern, focusing (within the software) and patching the design takes a number of days. Once I am happy with the plan, within WYSIWYG, I create the scale lighting plot graphic and the data schedules and print them out.

PDF Printout of the scale Lighting Plot

Setup and Tech

The evening of  Sunday January 30th the previous production at Stage West had its final performance. Once that show came down, the crew began to dismantle the scenery and lighting. I was on hand to deliver my lighting design graphics and data schedules to the head electrician. Over night, the crew took the old show's lighting and scenery out and installed my set design. I arrived the next morning at 9am to inspect the scenery installation and supervise the lighting installation. By the afternoon, the lighting equipment was installed and configured ready to focus. The rest of the afternoon and evening were taken up with directing the focus and colouring of each individual lighting fixture.

Set and Lights Going Up

The next morning (Tuesday) while finishing touches were being applied to the scenery, I sat with the Stage Manager and Director and set the lighting cues and levels for the show. The actors arrive after lunch and work through a cue to cue rehearsal. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday are taken up with technical rehearsals and finishing set dressing and painting in the breaks. The production opened to an audience on Thursday night and ran until April.

Technical Rehearsal

Dress Rehearsal