Inherit the Wind images
Here's the ground plan. I did not absolutely panic when director Hue told me he planned to put forty people on stage, but it did occur to me that such a big cast might be more suitable for a pageant staged on a basketball court in Dayton, Tennessee, where I doubt they choose this play, it was just an illustration, for heaven's sake.
And the period of set construction and rehearsal fell together with a big renovation project backstage, too. We all had to study to be flexible. The design called for lots and lots of entrances, entrances everywhere you looked, a positive superfluity of escape steps, plus no moving parts and a simple concept for the scenic art.
In the plan above, note the serpentine course you must follow to get from Down Center to Up Center: Step up to a 6-1/4 inch level, from there up to a 12-1/2 inch level, then to 18-3/4 inches and finally 25 inches. Hue asked me, after a rehearsal or two, why I had built such high steps on the direct path Upstage; I said they weren't steps, they were hills; he said they had to be steps too, as many people as he had moving around, so we added intermediate steps that are not shown.
The next three pages show a view and some details of the scenic painting.
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Inherit the Wind