How it all started ...

I have been working on the design for a while now and have had meetings with Chris, the director, to talk through our ideas. Glengarry Glen Ross is set in the 1980's, in a big city in America,which we imagine could be Chicago. It's a story about a group of real estate salesmen who are being pushed to the limit and have to use every trick to survive. There are two sets, a chinese restaurant where the salesmen go to relax, pick up custom and make their plots with or against each other, and an office , where there has been a break-in. So the first thing I had to think about was how to manage the change between the two sets, although it's an easier change than many, in that the scene change happens in the interval. I also set about some research; films from the period, internet pictures of American China-towns, my local chinese restaurant! A fact-finding trip to Chicago wasn't in the budget, unfortunately!
To start with I persued an idea of a kind of city-scape with city lights, advertising signs and so on, with scenery for each set brought on from the wings to create the office and restaurant. It had it's advantages but in the end we decided to go for a more focussed design, with no distraction from the intensity of the action of the play. Each set being smaller, I was then able to fit everything onto the revolving stage which will make the scene changes a whole lot easier and therefore me much more popular with the backstage gang! So that's where I'm up to now,working late to get the scale model finished for the production meeting later this week. Somehow this always seems to happen, no matter how much time I start off with - working late at the last minute! It's 9pm and I've still got lots of tiny bits of office furniture to finish off. You can see the little filing cabinets in the photo. I'll put some pictures of the finished model in with my next up-date so you can see a scale version of the set you will see when you come to see the show in a few weeks time!