Shady Business by Robin Hawdon
Stage West
August 26 - October 30, 2011
Directed by: J. Sean Elliott
Set and Lighting Design by: Douglas J. Rathbun
Costume Design by: Rebecca Toon
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| Naomi Costain and Scott Valentine in Stage West's "Shady Business" |
(see video from the production at 3:00)
Shady Business is a farce that centres on Mandy and Tania, two dancers working at a club owned by Mandy's boyfriend, Big Mack, who is one of the biggest crime bosses in the area. Originally set in London, England, for this production, the Director, J. Sean Eliot change the location to New Jersey, NY. In the play, Mandy has fallen in love with another man, Gerry, a city broker she met at the club. Complications ensue when Terry, a new henchman, arrives with the weekly take from one of Mack's businesses. The money is short and the boss is on his way to collect. Now Mandy and Tania don't just have to hide Gerry, but also have to hide the missing grand and keep Mack and his musclemen - Dozer and Harry the Hammer - from finding out the truth.
The Scene
The scene is Big Mack's New Jersey condominium apartment where he "keeps" Mandy. Big Mack may own the apartment but it is clear that Mandy lives there. There is a main entrance stage left, a livingroom, a raised platform bed area, a bathroom door upstage centre, a wet bar, french doors to a balcony, and a swinging door to the kitchen.
The Concept
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| Dress Rehearsal - Set Not Dressed (no artwork) |
In discussion with the Director, I designed the bathroom door to be upstage centre. There is a major "reveal" in the middle of Act II where Terry, trapped in the bathroom with Big Mac in the living room, dresses as a woman using Mandy's clothes from the bathroom to disguise his identity from Big Mac. This is a major moment of comedy in the play as Big Mac is expecting to find the man Mandy is supposed to be hiding in the bathroom. When Terry comes out in full drag, it is a show stopping moment. So the upstage centre entrance was key to planning the rest of the scenery. All the other spaces needed to work around the upstage centre bathroom door.
In concept, the design of the New Jersey apartment is one of money and class. It does, after all, belong to Big Mac. We saw Big Mac as a "classy" mobster, fond of fine clothes, expensive jewellery and fine wines. It is clear in the script he prefers the finer things in life. So the choices for the interior design of the apartment keyed on up scale fashionable contemporary design.
This concept is counterpointed by Mandy's personality. Big Mac may own the apartment but Mandy lives there. I designed the bed, kitchen and bathroom appointments with Mandy's personality in mind. I reasoned that she would feel free to "make over" the more severe masculine look of the apartment in her bed, bathroom and the kitchen. She's a free spirit and very "girly-girl", so I made the bedspread and sheets "Hello Kitty" in pattern and very very pink.
The bathroom is also very pink and festooned with hats, scarves, boas and other accoutrements of her "stripper" profession. It also shows she is a bit of a slob and gives Terry lots of material to work with for his "drag queen" performance. I had the kitchen area painted bright yellow with white daisies, again in keeping with the feminine "girly-girl" attitude to contrast the rest of the apartment.
The main part of the apartment is painted in bands of grey scale separated by chrome strips. The trim and doors are white and the furniture black/glass/chrome and taupe. The crown moulding is black and forms into two over head coves with inset quartz spotlights.
The artwork is very contemporary with three actual abstract paintings of New York by a New York artist around the bar. My choice of the Matisse nude over the bed was threefold. First, it represents sensuality/sexuality, and this is a sex-farce after all. Second, as it is a Matisse, it shows excellent taste. Third, being slightly abstract (Fauvism), it would not disturb the sensibilities of the mostly senior aged audience.
The Design
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| Napkin Concept Sketch Plan |
I was in luck that J. Sean Elliott is very up to date as far as computer technology is concerned. As Sean was directing a play in Ontario during the design phase of this project, being connected through the technology of DropBox, my iPad, Sketchup Pro and the internet made the design concept development phase work extremely well.
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| Napkin Concept Sketch |
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| 1st Concept Perspective |
I used a handwriting note program called Penultimate to sketch out some "napkin drawings" to illustrate different concepts for Sean. I created PDFs of the sketches and uploaded them to Dropbox where Sean would open them and we would discuss changes on the phone or by email exchange.
Sketchup
After settling on the arrangement of the apartment ( Kitchen downstage right, Bed centre stage right, bathroom upstage centre, bar upstage centre left, french doors to the balcony stage left and the main apartment entrance downstage left), I modeled the scenery in Google Sketchup Pro.
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| Preliminary Design Concept - No Textures |
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| Final Design Concept Perspective Drawing with Shadows |
I created the scenery to scale in Sketchup Pro based on a scale drawing the the Stage West stage and proscenium. I modeled the scenery with no textures or colours first and shared a number of versions with Sean. Once we had an agreement on the actual stage space (actor movement in and around the scenery was critical to the comic action), I designed the colour and texture treatment of the model in Sketchup Pro, designing and drawing the details of the bed, the wall colours, the bar, sliding pocket door of the bathroom, the bathroom and kitchen wallpaper, the exterior balcony and sky backing and the main entrance backing.
(you will be asked to install a viewer)
Working Drawings
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| Final Floor Plan |
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| Skylite Working Drawing |
I created a number of perspective and plan views of the model using the Sketchup Pro add-in program called "Layout". These views of the design were done in PDF and printed in colour plates for the entire production team to peruse. Once these final designs were approved by the team, I created more "Layout" drawings in the form of orthographic and isometric working drawings, floor plans, sections and elevations with dimension that were submitted to the Technical Director as construction drawings.
The Model
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| 1/4" Scale Model |
Once the drawings were in the hands of the shop and the Technical Director, I set to work building a 1/4"=1'0" scale model of the set. The model was painted and mockup furniture items created to aid the director, stage manager and the cast visualize the scenery during rehearsals.
The Lighting Design
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| Hanging Lights and Installing Scenery |
During rehearsals, I set to work on the lighting design. The lighting for this play was relatively simple with only one fixed location to deal with. The play takes place in two separate times of day, morning and evening. I used a program called "WYSIWYG" to build a three dimensional virtual model of the design and realize the lighting on the computer. Building the design with this program allows me to see the effect of each light in the design in three dimensions with colour, texture, intensity and even shutter cuts. Once I finalize the location of all the lighting fixtures, their colours and textures, I print out a scale ceiling plan lighting plot and the attached schedules of equipment. Those documents go to the Master Electrician and he leads the crew in hanging, cabling and focusing the fixtures.
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| Lighting Plot |
After the Sunday night performance of the previous play finished, the lighting crew worked through Sunday night and into Monday during the day to get the design fitted up while the carpenters under the direction of the Technical Director put the scenery together. By Monday night, I directed the focus of the lighting fixtures while the crew put the finishing touches on the set. During the day on Tuesday, I sat with the Stage Manager and the Director and created the lighting levels and cues for the play.
Over the next couple of days of technical and dress rehearsals, I made adjustments to lighting levels while supervising the decoration and finishing of the set dressing. The play opened to an audience on the Thursday night.
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| Opening Night Intermission |
The play was well received and had some good media attention with Scott Valentine (of "Family Ties" fame) in the lead role as "Big Mac".
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