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6
MAKING IT LOOK RIGHT.
S
pring is the time of year when many people think
of altering their homes – redecorating, changing
furniture or even moving to somewhere new. Doing it
once a year can be a stressful experience, but can you
imagine having to do it five times a year, every year?
This is something you get used to if you work in theatre:
– every play is set in a different environment, often in a
different era or maybe even in another country, and the
stage set must reflect this so that audiences can quickly
identify when and where the story is based.
Here at Altrincham Little Theatre, (formerly the Club
Theatre), our team of stage technicians works wonders
to create the most realistic settings for the many and
varied plays we present each year. Take this season for
example.
We started in the foyer of a Heath Spa, complete with
a fireplace large enough for an actor to climb up inside.
Play two was set in a Victorian parlour, with gas lights
and a splendid aspidistra in the corner of the room. Then
we moved to the terrace of a small villa on a hillside
in Elba, with a wonderful panoramic view of the bay
below followed by a splendid English garden, complete
with lawn and flowerbeds for the fourth play.
The season will end with the stage becoming the
staffroom of a boys’ school in the 1940s.
All these different locations have to be constructed
from scratch and then painted and papered to create the
desired effect. Even finding the appropriate wallpaper
can be tricky, especially when what you want is hardly
the height of fashion, and how do you do create a
magnificent view of the Elba coastline for the back wall
of the stage? (That is easy when you know someone
who can reproduce it digitally and print it out for you
like wallpaper.
Last season we had the Brooklyn Bridge all the way
across the back wall for one play.)
Having papered and painted it all, the correct furniture
has to be added (either from our store, borrowed from
obliging friends and family or, in the last resort, hired).
The last stage is to add all the bits and pieces that
make it into a convincing environment for the people
acting out the story. This includes pictures, light fittings,
and ornaments – all of which have to be as suitable as
possible for the period being represented (hence the
aspidistra).
We have a vast store of all sorts of bits and pieces
which have been collected and saved ‘just in case we
ever need them’. Nothing is ever thrown away!
And at the end of the play, it is all taken apart and a
brand new environment created for the next play.
A bit of redecorating at home is nothing compared to
what goes on to put a full-length play on stage, usually
in no more than four or five weeks.
If you can wield a hammer, screwdriver or paintbrush,
why not come and join us?
To find out more, go to our website, www.clubtheatre.
org.uk, where you will also find other examples of our
play sets.
(picture 1 – “
Kindly Keep it Covered
”)
(picture 2 – “
Gaslight
”)
(picture 3 – “
Horses in Midstream
”)