One of the more complicated sets, technically, that I have built. And, unfortunately, one of the few whose photos I lost due to a hard drive crash. This photo was passed on to me for use in my portfolio.

The set posed some major technical problems, due to the nature of the show. During the first act, the audience sees the front of the set, as they would normally. The second act, however, takes place ‘behind the scenes,’ so to speak. As such, the set needed to rotate 180 degrees, so that the audience is looking at the backstage. Not having access to a giant turntable, we accomplished this by building a second floor from 4’x8′ platforms and laying out casters in an expanding circular pattern on the underside. Setting a pivot point in the center of these casters, the stagehands (and it took four of them) could rotate the set during intermission.

Among the other problems to overcome were the second floor ‘closet’ door, and the first floor window. The doorknob on the second floor door had to work properly during the first and second acts, and break during the third. The simplest solution to this was to remove the locking screw that held the doorknob on, and teach the actors to use the door without pulling off the knob until act three. The first floor window had a pane that gets broken several times over the course of the show. We solved this by using a recipe for ‘sugar glass’ that was found on the internet, which one of the interns prepared for us on a daily basis.

Noises Off Photography © Jon Crispin