What
Kind of a Set Can You Build
for 25 Bucks?
One
of the major challenges in staging a realistic play such as the
Footlighter's production of All My Sons is designing and building
a set that supports the realism of the story. And that costs money.
A lot of money. It's far less expensive to use a few set pieces
to create the "feeling" of a realistic environment. The first
show of the 1999-2000 season, Sylvia, for example, had no
construction costs and used set pieces to create the "feeling"
of the environment. But playwright Arthur Miller had something altogether
different in mind for the set of All My Sons. Consider the following
set description from his play:
The backyard of the JOSEPH KELLER home in the outskirts of an American town. August of our era (1947).
The stage is hedged on Right and Left by tall, closely planted poplars which lend the yard a secluded atmosphere. Upstage is filled with the back of the house and its open, unroofed porch which extends into the yard some six feet. The house is two stories high and has seven rooms. It would have cost perhaps fifteen thousand in the early twenties when it was built. Now it is nicely painted, looks tight and comfortable, and the yard is green with sod, here and there plants whose season has gone.
A two-story house? On our stage? In designing any set, one usually looks at the playwright's description and then begins the arduous task of defining it within the confines of the performing space. Poplars might have worked in New York with a "Broadway" budget, but on the Footlighter stage, creating the effect of realistic trees would be prohibitively expensive. A two-story house is also out. The "fly space" over our stage is only 13 feet! Just barely enough height for one story! And the green sod? Have you checked the price of artificial turf lately? Definitely not on a Footlighter budget. Further, (though not mentioned in the above set description), the set calls for a young tree to be cut down on stage because it was damaged during a windstorm.
So
what to do? The first step was to define what is absolutely essential
to the story and what was possible given the size (height, width and depth)
of the stage. Set designer Al Morin and director Marianne Phinney settled
on the following essentials: the first floor exterior of the home, the
porch, the secluded yard, and the tree. And it was supremely important
that the outside of the house itself look realistic and give the sense
of the size and proportion of an actual house. The next problem was to
build such a thing on a small budget. A very small budget. (Or from the
set designer's perspective - a miniscule budget.)
Our sets usually run between $350 and $500 to build, paint and dress. For All My Sons, we needed quite a bit of silk greenery and flowers. Some of the flowers came from our stock, but others (roses and leaves for the tree) needed to be purchased. Paint usually runs around $150 or so. That doesn't leave a lot for wood and construction materials.
Fortunately, we didn't have to buy any new wood for this set—not a stick. Everything you will see on the set is from recycled wood and stock. The Footlighters have been using hard modular flats instead of canvas flats for quite a few years now. Hard flats (also known as "TV flats") are made from 1" x 4" frames covered with luaun and are designed to be reused and reconfigured. This makes the building of all the vertical surfaces (i.e. walls) extremely cost-effective. A few years ago, the Footlighters also invested in building modular platforms (or risers). These were first used in the production of Corpse! back in the '96-'97 season. These platforms created the foundation of the house. But these modular elements only create the raw "base" for the set. The next problem is how to create the effect of an exterior of a real house. And that's where the cost can balloon. So the solution was to reuse and recycle as much as possible.
Here's the list of the "recycled materials" that were used to complete the effect of the house:
- The windows were recycled from an old house whose owners had installed replacement windows.
- The window frames were built from scrap lumber.
- The shutters came from stock and were resized to fit the windows.
- The "clapboards" on the house are leftover pieces of scrap luaun.
- The vintage screen door was donated by members from their garage.
- The windowed kitchen door came from a discard found on the street.
- The porch pillars are made out of recycled cardboard carpet rolls, with the railing created from scrap lumber.
- The lattice work under the porch was made from lattice left over from another show.
- The foundation blocks and the porch roof were made from foam insulation left over from the new roof last year.
- The lighting fixtures came from stock.
- The picnic table belongs to the Footlighters and came in from the cold outside.
- The tree was donated by the director who wanted the ungainly thing removed from her yard.
Even most of the screws used to put the set together came from screws saved from previous sets. (Still, there weren't enough and the Master Carpenter had to break down and buy a couple of boxes.)
The curious thing about this set is that there are bits and pieces of materials that have been recycled from Footlighter productions going back (it is estimated) 20 to 25 years. The result is there's a lot of Footlighter history built into this set. And there's a certain satisfaction in knowing that. It's almost a testament to all the shows that came before.
Now, except for the leaves (about $60) and the paint (about $125), the entire set cost just under $25 to build (screws aren't cheap). So when you come to see All My Sons or look at the photo, you be the judge. Did we get our money's worth?