A Set Design From Scratch

I thought it might be interesting (or educational or something) to show the progress of one show's set design through all its phases, from beginning to end.

A while back I got hired by Fun House Theatre and Film to design their up-coming Romeo and Juliet.

This is a show I've long wanted to design.  I once came close: but was foiled when that other theater company changed to a different show.  Rats!  I had such a good idea too, I thought.  Now - finally! - this chance.  Happily for me, the nice folks at Fun House liked this long-frustrated idea...

I once visited the Italian town of San Gimignano, a medieval town so neighborly that pretty well every household built their own defensive tower.  Perfect! for the Montagues and Capulets.

San Gimignano - courtesy of Wikimedia HERE

I want to stage the play with each family both alike in the dignity of their own tower.  Today I showed Fun House these sketches:

A schematic design elevation for Fun House Theatre and Film's production of Romeo and Juliet - by Shakespeare, of course.

A schematic plan for Fun House Theatre and Film's Romeo and Juliet.

The towers are color coded - reddish colors for the Capulets, blueish for the Montagues, which is inspired by the costumes planned for this production.  The towers are meant to be very textural - built of rough stone, brick, shingles, sheet metal, scraps and scrounged materials, nothing highly anachronistic, but suggestive of the period rather than utterly correct.  (This is good from a budget and gettin'-it-done standpoint.  A "correct" production is difficult and expensive.)  An important detail will be the violets that I saw growing in the chinks of the real town's towers.

Reaction?

Approved to proceed!

The next step is to send copies of these loosey-goosey sketches on to the excellent scenic builder for him to consider while I whip up some fast construction drawings.

The show opens Valentines Day.  So get yer tickets!

I'll keep y'all in the loop. 

(BTW I reserve the copyright to this design of course.)

ADDENDUM:  HERE is a link to some of the rougher sketches that preceeded this "pretty" one.

ADDENDUM #2:  HERE is a later post that links to all the posts about creating this R&J set.