My 3 ANGELS Plans

At top is the groundplan for the set of MY 3 ANGELS. This outline was taped off on the floor of the workshop space for rehearsals. The sightlines in the Little Theatre at Century 21 were very shallow, with audience seated at both the extreme right and left of the stage. This meant that the action of the plays had to be pulled as far forward as possible, leaving a pretty narrow central space which could be seen from all angles. I would soon be forced to employ the hydraulic orchestra pit to stage level and design later shows to play on this thrust for better sightlines.

Below is a section of the Working Drawings or Plans which I would prepare for the Carpenter so that the flats and extra decorations could be built to scale. Every flat needed for both the forward set walls and the returns and masking had to be meticulously drawn out with reference to any existing set pieces which I intended to incorporate. This theatre had been in operation since the 1950's and there was a wealth of left-over doors, staircases and large props in storage which I used to fill out my designs and offset the budget for each show.

The bamboo supports used for MY 3 ANGELS were something new however, and all had to be built from scratch. For the smaller elements such as the garden gates, we used real bamboo shafts from a garden center lashed together with twine ( and hot glue, a new invention back then!).

The large beams and supports were constructed out of the central tubing on which rolls of carpet are shipped. We cut each long tube in half lengthwise and cut foam insulating tubing into quarters as well. about every 12" a quarter of foam was secured around the half cardboard tube and then the entire thing was covered with muslin, glued and stretched in place. When dry these were faux-painted to look like real bamboo.