Director’s Notebook: Stage Model

When designing the stage for my production of “She Kills Monsters”, I started by making a list of each scene, noting what props would need to be part of the set and any times where there was a location change without time for a proper scene change. The major examples of the later I found were  scene 15, where things shift between Agnes’ apartment and the D&D world, and the transition between scenes 5 and 6, where Agnes goes from being in Vera’s office to the D&D world in the middle of her sentence. In order to keep these transitions simple, I decided to design the stage to have both the real and fantasy worlds be set up all times. The thing separating them would be two layers of curtains, one a sparkly dark blue, and one orangey-brown in front of it. The brown curtain serves as the backdrop for the scenes in Athens, Ohio; namely Agnes’ apartment, Vera’s office, and a few one-off locations. The blue-black curtain serves as a more mystical-looking divider between the two worlds, and would be the backdrop for two specific scenes that don’t take place fully in either: the intro narration and scene 11.

Before going into more of the stage design, a quick clarification: the kind of stage I’m using for this project is a Processmium stage. In the best case scenario, I would want it to be only about 2 feet off the ground, since I don’t want to distance the audience from the action any more than the fanstasical elements will likely do by default. At the end of the day, I want the audience to get invested in these characters, and see their struggles, even when abstracted in the fantasy realm, as real (or as close to real as theatre can be without going full Brecht).
The back wall of the set is a “painting” of a forest, with the upper center looking like a section of wall from an ancient castle (since that’s where the climax is meant to take place). The window would actually be a hole in the wall, which I imagine would specifically be useful for when Agnes fights the four-headed dragon at the end. The platform just beneath this window would be needed for that, but in general, I wanted to add more levels to the stage, so this platform can be used earlier as well. Actors can get on and off the platform via the ramps on either side.
Beneath the platform, there is a mini curtain showing a small body of water, which, when drawn back, reveals the fiery cave that  serves as the set for scene 4. The scene requires a couch, which I had considered designing to look like it was made from the stone around it, but instead decided to make it a normal red couch (a duller red than the one I used in the model for a real production). I had two reasons for this: first, since this scene takes place early in the show when Agnes hasn’t fully committed to the fantasy, and Orcus, the demon who lives in this cave, is meant to subvert expectations of a seriously threatening villain, having it just be a regular couch fits better; and second, having a regular couch means it could theoretically be used in real world scenes, to give them more than just the table/desk and chairs that are there by default.
Speaking of which, the table/desk and chairs would be on stage right for the scenes in Vera’s office, and on stage left for the scenes in Agnes’ apartment (maybe even with some actual D&D stuff on it to sell that Agnes and Chuck are actually playing the game). The only other major props needed would be a counter for scene 2 in Chuck’s workplace, and some packed boxes for scene 3 in Tilly’s bedroom.