Design Process: Platform

This platform was 90% of the show. With a limited build time, and the added transition a new space made to our club processes, we scaled back.

Working in Thwing Ballroom had many positives, but some negatives were no pit space, and an inability to build in the ballroom. Instead we transported our set across campus and up a marble staircase into the ballroom.

The platforms were supposed to main multi-functional as it was always in view, but also functioned mainly as our ‘underground’. Most seedy things in the show happened bare-stage with just our platforms in view.

Design Process: Window Flats

These window flats were made to break up the feeling of different interiors. To go back to the idea of paper theater they were made flat and mounted on rolling platforms, and then painted/cut at and angle to imply depth.

The holes were then covered with transparent paper, and the top windows had an added ‘stained glass’ design with Rose’s used to hearken back to main character Rosa Bud who was featured in the location these windows were used.

Design Process: Dining Room

The dining room set was only used once in the show, at the end of act one at Christmas Dinner.

This scene has a sort of round-robin effect to it, as all the characters bounce between their internal monologues and the things they say out loud. The odd angle of the front two chairs and the harsh rake on the table, allowed key moments to be visible on our raised stage. Since neither the stage nor the audience is raked, we often have to play around with forced perspective or raked set pieces to make things visible.

The table was so short in the front we cut down the chairs and they still barely fit underneath it, but important moments of carving ‘the roast’ were seen by the audience.

Design Process: Headstones

Many important scenes in the show take place in the graveyard.

Since the names on the gravestones were hard to see from the audience, we had fun with the names including main character Edwin Drood’s parents - as well as an explanation for their death via shipwreck, Rosa Bud’s mother who we named Flora, and Reverend Crisparkle’s ‘spinster’ sister.

We also included Charles Dickens and another famed Dickens grave: Ebenezer Scrooge.