life with more cowbell

Behind the scenes of a world premiere!  Yesterday’s post was about Peter DeFreitas’ costume design inspiration.  Today, February set designer Karen Elizabeth McMichael describes her process.  She said she’d just “ramble a little bit”, but I found this whole thing fascinating, not to mention informative.  I mean, did YOU ever consider what goes into a set design?  Or how the mind of a designer works?  After Peter’s post yesterday and now Karen’s, I conclude that designers don’t think like us regular folks, that’s for sure!  (And that’s a good thing.)

Designing a set is a little bit like a sculptor sitting down with a big blob of squishy clay and slowly finding a shape in that.  My “clay” is a combination of the script that the playwright has given me, the theatre that the producers have chosen for me to work in, and the initial vision that the director has…