The Ground Plan

DESIGNING SCENERY

In designing the scenery, the most useful method of starting after the setting has been visualized (see

FIG. 21.-POSSIBLE GROUND PLANS FOR A LIVING ROOM TO CONTAIN Two Doors, Two WINDOWS AND A FIREPLACE.

Chapter IX), is to lay out the ground plan for the set. It will be better if the artist lays out several ground

plans, and then determines which is best from every point of view. Which will be most suitable for the play? Which will be the easiest to handle from the technical point of view? Which will be the most economical to build, taking into consideration scenery and stage properties possessed by the group, which may be rebuilt and adapted? Cross-section paper is useful, and the ground plan should be made to scale. A scale of one-fourth inch to one foot will usually be found large enough.

Size of Scenery

The size of the flat must be decided during this first step of designing, the laying out of the ground plan. The height is usually determined by the theater. Flats should be preferably two or three feet higher than the proscenium opening. If the opening is nine feet, flats may well be twelve feet in height; if the opening is twelve feet, fifteen will be found satisfactory. This height need rarely be exceeded. In fact, nine or ten feet is a perfectly satisfactory height for many stages, and there is a great saving both of money and time if flats are not made too tall. If necessary, the proscenium opening may be cut down by a curtain at the top, called technically a "teaser." The width of flats should rarely exceed six feet, as a piece of scenery wider than six feet is difficult to handle. Most professional flats are made five feet and nine inches in width. This is a standard size, determined largely by the convenience with which scenery of this width can be shipped in railroad cars.

Mechanical Drawing

After the layout of the scenery on the ground plan, the next step may be to make drawings from which the carpenters are to work. These should be ordinary mechanical drawings, giving the exact size of each piece required. Plain flats usually have a crosspiece, or two, called "stretchers," illustrated in the drawings on page 115. Flats are more easily handled if the stretchers are about five feet from the floor. Flats that are to contain doors or windows should have appropriate openings.

Model Making

If a careful model of the set is to be made, it may be possible to omit the making of mechanical drawings. The model should be sufficiently accurate so that the carpenters and painters can reproduce it. A heavy piece of cardboard, of sufficiently good quality so as not to warp and twist, should be used as the base of the model. It represents the floor of the stage. Every detail of the model should be made to exact scale, and onequarter inch to the foot is a useful scale. A larger scale may be used, if desired, but it is not wise to have models that are large and unwieldy. The best and easiest material to use for the proscenium and the scenery itself is probably a heavy drawing paper, say a two-ply Bristol board with a finished surface to paint on. The main part of the scenery may usually be cut out in one piece. On all the edges of the proscenium and of the scenery itself, flaps about one-quarter of

an inch in width should be left. These are to be folded back, in order to keep the paper from warping and to give the model solidity. The flaps at the bottom will also allow the scenery to be pasted to the floor board.

Let us suppose that we are to make a model for the set described in the mechanical drawing on page 115. It consists, according to the specification, of seven flats, each twelve feet high, and five feet nine inches wide. Two of the flats are to contain doors, and two to contain windows. The doors are to be three feet wide and seven feet high; and the windows three feet wide and five feet high. There is to be a space of thirty inches between the bottom of the window and the floor.

The floor plan of the set must have already been decided upon, although a set of this sort is capable of an infinite number of variations as shown in the series of floor plans (page 113). Suppose we have agreed upon Plan 4, as one that lends itself to the play. It is probably a more interesting room than the square ones in Plans 1 or 2, and the little alcove containing the fireplace at the right will furnish some interesting possibilities for the direction of the play. To make the model we shall need a floor board which is seven and one-half by five inches, to represent a stage thirty by twenty feet. Let us imagine that our proscenium arch is twenty feet wide and ten feet high. According to our scale, the proscenium opening in our model will be five inches by two and one-half. Let us leave one and one-quarter inches around this opening, so that the proscenium arch will extend to the edge of the