Bed and Sofa: the latest stage
Andy Hull’s set model for Bed and Sofa.
Today we had our first formal design meeting for our upcoming Bed and Sofa. This is our first opportunity for all of the designers to get together and begin thinking about how all of our design choices are coming together. We want the ultimate product to have a cohesion, so that all of the various elements, each designed by different people, feel like they all belong to the same “world” that we are creating for the play.
As I wrote in an earlier post, the world of Bed and Sofa is that of the silent film. Since the original film was created in Moscow in 1926, we know that the look of the costumes, scenery and props will have a Soviet influence. Since we are trying to capture the feel of a silent film, we are setting the show in a world that is entirely seen in shades of grey, white and black.
Today, Andy Hull the set designer working with me on the show, presented his model of the set. We use this model as the first stage of the over all look. We can make changes on it still, but that time is now coming towards an end, as Nick Fouch, our technical director, now begins to turn the drawings and model into full size pieces made from real wood! Changes really begin to become difficult and expensive.
Here is a photo of Andy’s model. You can compare it to my first sketch. My idea for the set design came from the film. The apartment in the movie is a basement apartment and you can see the underside of the stairs jutting into the room. I liked the shape and tried to tie it in. In the musical the presence of Stalin is felt somehow as a looming Big Brother type. So we played with how to bring him into the design. I handed Andy this sketch and he has been working his magic on it. He cleaned it up and more importantly he added his wonderfully clever touches to it. The back masking flats, which will have collages of various images mentioned in the show, have the silhouette of the onion domes of St. Peters suggested in their shapes. Andy’s great.
We’ll keep you up on the progress.
The black and white world of Bed and Sofa
I am really excited about beginning work on our upcoming musical, Bed and Sofa, by Polly Pen and Laurence Klavan. We did this show as part of our very first season, before many people had even heard about our work. It turned out to be a wonderful success and helped introduce our theatre to a new range of people. I’ve wanted to work on it again because it was one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had in the theatre.
It’s based on the 1926 Russian silent-film by Abram Room. The movie, which is available on Amazon in beautiful restoration DVD, was a breakthrough film that is startlingly contemporary in it’s acting style and cinematic directing.
As we begin work bringing this musical-adapted-from-a-silent-film-for-the-stage we’re trying to capture the essence of a silent movie. As in our first production, we are creating a world onstage that is completely engulfed in glorious black and white! Every detail of the set from the bedding to the fried egg is presented in shades of grey. Even the actors are in grey scale creating the total illusion of the silver tones of the silent era. Andy Hull, our SDSU Fellowship Designer who designed The History Boys, is working with me on the set design. We are having a great time taking the cramped apartment set from the film and adapting it for the stage. The set from our original production in 2004 is being re-imagined in a slightly bigger version for the Old Town Theatre.
What’s exciting for us is that the new production isn’t a remount at all. It will feature a entirely new cast, as our original Kolya, Eric Anderson is currently on Broadway in the revival of South Pacific, and Julie (Jacobs) Ludlum now resides in Northern California with her husband and two babies and Michael Elliott now lives in Texas. They were wonderful and were recognized for their work with awards from the San Diego Critic’s Circle. But the new cast that is being assembled consists of some of San Diego’s favorite musical performers and I am thrilled and excited to see what they bring to the roles. When I am finished casting I’ll share who they are and maybe they can be convinced to add to this blog as we begin rehearsals.
The production team is top notch. The talented G. Scott Lacy will be music directing and a designer I’ve loved and worked with several years ago, Corey Johnston, will be designing the costumes. Our resident artist lighting designer Eric Lotze is given the challenge of creating a live version of a black and white film and Sam Lerner will be creating a soundscape that evokes the world of Stalin’s Moscow. And the many black and white props, including grey eggs and real black bread, will be created, as always, by Bonnie Durben.
It’s getting exciting. More to come…