An original musical, piece by Ethan and Maddie, set in a hotel on Corsica in the 1970s, the musical was a murder-mystery featuring homages to many different musicals over the years. The main set was a hotel with 6 doors, 4 of which were on a raised platform to represent upstairs. 2 doors in either wing and a Lobby desk, as well as a bar made up the downstairs. The set was made to a brief given by the directors by myself and Juliana Neild.
To achieve the effect of hotel-ish flock wallpaper, and not being able to apply actual wallpaper, did it in the same style as a previous production (pink stuff on top). Juliana made a design and we got it lasercut at a local library makerspace.
The wallpaper was applied using stippling of paint, for nearly 18 square meters of wall.
For the hotel lobby desk I found an old workbench for free off facebook. I took it apart, put it back together again with a great deal of structural support, as someone had to stand on it. It was a bit of work getting the bench, which was someone's home project previously, up to scratch, and it ended up a little bit of a 'Frankenstein's monster', but it was in an acceptable state by the end.
The directors wanted the desk to be slightly rounded, so I added a thin sheet of MDF to the front which I curved to give the shape. We jigsawed ply from shipping crates from the side of the road into the countertop, painting it black with white speckles to imitate marble. Skirting was added and slight details of panelling and gilding were painted on. In contrast to ISTM, brackets were not utilised, and I stripped several from the original desk, replacing them with wooden braces.
The script called for a gramophone prop. As gramophones are expensive, and this was student theatre, I made made it out of cardboard and a schweppes bottle (other brands are available), mounted on top of what used to be a drawer. In photos, and up close, it looks quite ugly. But on stage from the audience it served its purpose remarkably well
