Set designs with primarily chairs?
Set designs with primarily chairs?
aces25
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/13/04
#1Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 5:01pmDo you have any examples of set designs and staging that primarily only use chairs (i.e. The Laramie Project, Vagina Monologues, etc.)
ghostlight2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/04
#2Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 5:20pm
Grand Hotel's set appeared to be basically a collection of gold ballroom chairs and a revolving door. There was much more to it, of course: plexiglass columns, spinning chandeliers, an upstairs gallery to carry the orchestra. But what we remember are the gold chairs.
The original set for NINE was a bunch of tiled levels with tiled seating blocks for the cast. It was a LONG wait till the "Grand Canal" portals flew in in Act II.
Owen22
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/24/11
#4Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 5:38pm
From "Forbidden Broadway's" "Grand Hotel" spoof...
"People come. People go. People move chairs."
timote316
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/20/04
#5Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 8:27pmI did a production of Our Town in college that used only chairs... I'm sure that's a common design.
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#7Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 8:44pmThere's this play by Ionesco...
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
#8Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:03pm
The Scottsboro Boys
The Chairs
Spring Awakening
Grand Hotel
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#9Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:09pmNYCO's revival of NIGHT MUSIC was all chairs. Looked like hell.
http://docandraider.com
#10Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:29pmPatti and Mandy's show uses just chairs... and ghost-lights.
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#11Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:55pm
Don Juan in Hell (1952 Broadway production)
The Hollow Crown
The Golden Age
#12Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:57pmMost productions of OUR TOWN, come to think of it.
http://docandraider.com
#13Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 9:59pm
Ionesco's THE CHAIRS is obvious. THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS is the most recent that comes to mind.
With imagination, any play's set could be constructed of only chairs.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
--Aristotle
#14Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 10:06pmStafford Arrima's Ragtime was done only with chairs.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#15Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 10:17pmCOPENHAGEN was a circular platform and three chairs.
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#16Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/18/11 at 10:29pmThe Copenhagen chairs were the only memorable thing about it.
Poster Emeritus
#17Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 9:34pm
As already said, my main memory of Grand Hotel (which I saw on tour when I was 11 or so) was--aside from how stunning I found the production--those chairs...
Sean said: NYCO's revival of NIGHT MUSIC was all chairs. Looked like hell.
Ah I'm glad someone agrees with me (unless you were joking...) The stage always seemed so empty to me--especially compared to Aronson's original design (I guess with the plexiglass trees sliding around it would be expensive to use again but I wish someone would).
#18Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 9:38pm
Actually the trees werent plex. They were luann, which, at the time, was a cutting edge material.
And yeah, the NYCO production looked like hell. One of the few times I've ever sat down and written a latter of complaint about how bad a design was, but this one merited it.
http://docandraider.com
#19Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 9:50pmHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Irish Rep's version of Beowulf a few years back! LOL!
Those Blocked: SueStorm. N2N Nate. Good riddence to stupid! Rad-Z, shill begone!
#20Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 10:01pm
I coulda sowrn in the Aronson book it said they were glass--for some reason, though I may have had to look up luann and read somewhere it described as like plex and got that in my head (my copy of that book is somewhere in a box--I really should make sure I can find it, it's such a great resource and seems to go for a lot used now).
E
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#21Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 10:07pm
"COPENHAGEN was a circular platform and three chairs."
And part of the audience was seated on stage.
#22Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 10:11pm
The problem with using glass (or plex, for that matter) was the issue of weight: these things were over 20-0 high and 8-0 wide, and — back when the show was first mounted — we didnt have sufficiently light weight materual to make them move as smoothly as Boris wanted.
Then someone told him about luann. Feders tested it out, and it apparently was perfect — save for the cost, because, again, at that time, no one was using it. But oddly enough, it was this production that made luann a popular material: the manufacturer promoted the hades out of this.
http://docandraider.com
#23Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 10:24pmThe Year of Magical Thinking, as directed by Cate Blanchett.
Beyoncé is not an ally. Actions speak louder than words, Mrs. Carter. #Dubai #$$$
#24Set designs with primarily chairs?
Posted: 12/19/11 at 10:55pm
Sean, sorry to point out, but the word you're looking for is LEXAN. Luan is a thin mahogany plywood sheet often used to skin hard flats. Lexan is a super-durable plexi-like product. You're usually so spot on in your set design observations, I certainly won't hold this odd gaffe against you :
As it turns out, I actually found lots to admire about the revival set of ALNM. (Loved the mirror panels that dissolved from framed prints into birch trees.) But enjoying this production required forgetting everything I had loved when I saw Boris' original back in 1973.
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