The Children's Hour images
This three-act drama made some special demands on the design. Acts 1 and 3 take place in Martha and Karen's schoolroom, Act 2 in Grandmother Tilford's parlor. Here is the ground plan I created for Acts 1 and 3:
Director Katie thinks in the visual language of literal realism. She needed the schoolroom to be "fully executed," with working doors and so forth. She wanted to communicate not only a highly concrete sense of this place, but also the awful change in it from act to act—it begins alive and noisy and ends dreary and dead. I suggested making a room in which each of the 8 or 10 schoolgirls had her own spot, where she could set down her box of books and supplies and be at home. Each could then gravitate to that spot when not required to be at center stage, gaining a bit of privacy as well as orientation in the space. The ideal room for Act 1 would then be a big room with a lot of corners.
To get from Act 1 to Act 3, which takes place after the collapse of the school, Katie would undress the set by removing every girl's personal items, leaving a vast empty space. Lighting would also aid the contrast: "comedy" lighting in Act 1, with everything up full, and more nuanced lighting in Act 3, culminating (poor choice of word) in sunset and dusk.
I'll tell more about the lighting on page 4 of this series.
At top left in the drawing is a note calling for a "magic" flat at the arrow. That's just a flat that is hinged so it turns into a loading door for scene changes. We used nearly every inch of space in the backstage, as you'll see on the next page.
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