by Julian Wiles, Set Designer for Shakespeare in Love
The sets for Shakespeare in Love presented quite a challenge. The show has 28 scenes. Since the show started as a movie, it flows very much like a film, one scene moving into the next. That’s easier said than done when the scenery for Shakespeare in Love includes two theatres, a tavern, inside the Queen’s palace, a boat on the Thames, and Viola’s bedroom! Cody Rutledge and I actually went through three separate complete designs before we decided on the one you will see onstage.
Since the show is about one of the most famous writers in history, we wanted to literally put his writing front and center. This led us to making the basic set look like giant pieces of parchment paper with Shakespeare’s writing on it. For the writing, we used actual copies of lines from Shakespeare’s first folio.
The play opens with Shakespeare sitting at a simple desk struggling with writers block. Cody and I began to brainstorm on what Shakespeare might be doing at his desk as he struggled to write, and we decided he might be doodling and just scribbling ideas for plays. So when the audience arrives at the theatre, they will indeed see Shakespeare’s desk at center stage but floating magically behind his desk are fragments from his prolific pen in which he is trying out new phrases, plots, as well as, fun elements like his shopping list. This whimsical look at Shakespeare’s wondrous imagination also says to the audience, this isn’t the stuffy Shakespeare you expect, this is going to be great fun.
And indeed it is. For in addition to the writing, there are sword fights, a grand ball, and of course at center, a wonderful romance. This is a romance that would inspire Shakespeare to create one of the greatest love stories of all time—Romeo and Juliet.
So how does a set design begin? In the case of Shakespeare in Love, it included a series of quick thumbnail sketches.
From these the ideas became more concrete, and designs began to be drafted. From these draftings, Cody built a half inch model. This model shows all the scenes and is painted just as the full set will be painted. The model also allows the directors and the actors to know what the set is going to look like and what elements they have to work with. As you will see in the model photo, you can’t do Romeo and Juliet without a balcony, so that was added as well.
From the model and the drafting (just like those an architect does) our scene shop went to work (starting back in January) to begin constructing the 28 scenes the show requires. Nicole Bianco, Chris Konstantinidis, Cody Rutledge, Dylan Rutemiller, Alison Frimmel, Allison Grady, our TheatreWings High School Apprentices and others have been hard at work constructing these elaborate sets—for everything you will see onstage was built in our scene shops in West Ashley. We’re hopeful all this hard work will give our audiences a show that is worthy of being the grand finale of our 40th Anniversary Season.
