MAR
18

The Set Builder’s Nightmare

By Brian D. Taylor, Project Editor, Pioneer Drama Service 

Brian D. Taylor is the project editor for Pioneer Drama Service, a published playwright and a former drama teacher.  Working with K-12, college and community theatre groups, he has a wide theatrical background with experience in directing, acting and technical theatre. 

(Suddenly, we hear a KNOCK.  Not wanting to be found, GERTRUDE hides in the coat closet.
WYATT tiptoes IN through the creaky front door.)

If you’re like me — and I assume there are plenty of you out there who can relate — stage directions like this carry with them a small sense of trepidation.  “Why?”  you ask.  Because it requires the construction of an interior set that includes not just one working door, but two.  And as a former set builder, doors were always my biggest frustration.

For about nine years, I designed and built sets for a few different theatre groups.  None of these organizations had a stage that was devoted to them full-time.  One group toured their shows, another group used a space that was shared with other classes and school groups, and the third group was stuck with the dreaded cafegymatorium.  (Relating yet?)  Thus, all of the sets had to be put up and torn down within the span of a single production week.

And nothing...  NOTHING...  could ever be secured to the floor.  Period.  Exclamation mark.

For the most part, this was no trouble.  Basic wall flats can be held up with jacks and sandbags.  No problem.  But doors...

Oh, the doors...!

You see, a door requires movement.  In order for the door to work properly, the doorframe must be perfectly square and strongly secured in place.  Otherwise, several things can happen.  Usually, the door will sag, which means the bottom of the door catches the stage floor and won’t shut properly.  Other times the door won’t align with the door frame properly, causing it not to fit the frame or perhaps making the latch miss its strike plate, leaving you with either a door that won’t open or won’t remain closed.

Now, these things can be fixed, but it involves a lot of tinkering.  On load-in day, when you have just one day to get all the sets and lights and sound and other production elements in place, the last thing you want to be doing is spending hours tinkering with a doorframe.

And don’t even think of a swinging door.  They’re even worse, unless you’re talking about saloon doors that don’t reach the floor or the ceiling.  But really, how many living rooms have saloon doors?

So what’s the solution?

Easy.  Avoid working doors at all costs.

But, you say, the play you chose is a British farce that requires no less than six working doors.

Okay, honestly, certain plays are going to be really difficult to produce without a set with working doors.  So if you’re going to choose one of those plays, then make sure you have both the time and the proper space to do it right.

There are plenty of other shows, however, that theoretically require doors even though there are other options.  See if any of these alternative ideas will work just as well, so you can save yourself some sleepless nights.

• For interior doors, a great solution is to replace them with archways or open doorframes with no actual doors in them.  Many homes have framed doorways that lead from one room into the next, but no actual door.
• For a front entrance to a house, instead of a working door, you can create a front entry hall, with the doorway suggested just offstage.
• Similarly, let’s say the script calls for an exit to a bedroom.  Of course, a bedroom would require a working door.  But what if you altered the set design just enough so that one exits through a hallway that leads to the bedroom?  This way, the exit to the bedroom is still defined, yet no working door is needed, since all we see onstage is the exit for the hallway.
• Finally, who needs walls and doors at all?  Many plays that call for an interior set with doors are just creating a realistic set.  Read the play carefully.  Are the doors actually part of the plot, as they would be in a farce?  Are they used to create hiding places or privacy?  If there’s no plot point that would change, then the play can very easily be produced with just set props.  A couch and a coffee table and — voila! — living room.  A table and some chairs — dining room!  You get the point.