Initially the director and I employed a turntable to bring furniture and other elements into the space. This meant actors and stagehands were never visibly moving things around the stage. The turntable, however, became such a cumbersome element. It limited the size and shape of the space, and heavily dictated the pace and look of the play. So, we created a more open space that employed three sliding panels that could be re-used to create different scenes. The elements of the set, like the lives of the characters, are interwoven. We decided to project the location of each scene onto the set to further limit our need for extensive scene changes. An upstage image of windows, and the open doorframes downstage are a carry-over from an early idea. The characters in this play, although refined, are raw and exposed. They are out in the open, in danger, subject to prying eyes.
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Designer's Notebook, Betrayal
by Todd Rosenthal
Initially the director and I employed a turntable to bring furniture and other elements into the space. This meant actors and stagehands were never visibly moving things around the stage. The turntable, however, became such a cumbersome element. It limited the size and shape of the space, and heavily dictated the pace and look of the play. So, we created a more open space that employed three sliding panels that could be re-used to create different scenes. The elements of the set, like the lives of the characters, are interwoven. We decided to project the location of each scene onto the set to further limit our need for extensive scene changes. An upstage image of windows, and the open doorframes downstage are a carry-over from an early idea. The characters in this play, although refined, are raw and exposed. They are out in the open, in danger, subject to prying eyes.