Has anyone put on a production of Neil Simon's God's Favorite? I'm wondering how you made the transition between acts where the Benjamin mansion burns down? I've got some ideas, but I'd be interested in hearing how others have handled it. Thanks.

Hi Dick,

Hi Tim,

We just finished a highly successful run of God's Favorite this past weekend.  I'll write more later and tell you how we did it.  I'm headed to the theatre right now.

Jan Derrickson - Managing Director - Tin Building Theatre - Clifton, Tx.

We built the "good" with 2 full walls & 1 side wall made of fake brick sheets and the remaining walls of luan wood.  We left the brick walls up for the "bad" aset nd just rolled ashes on them and painted the crown molding black to look burned.  We had the remaining flats on very large sliders attached to the base of the flats and just slid them offstage.  We then slid burned out flats (basically burned and/or painted boards to look burned) onto the set and put them where the good flats had been.  We spray painted fake trees black (that had only a few leaves)in pots to replace the good trees, hung spray painted frames to look burned, and had a burned out couch for Act 2.  We also had burned boards laying around on the floor.  Our local fire dept. burned the couch for us.  We also made a cut-away bar to replace the good one and had it partially burned.  It was all very effective, and the entire switch took us only 7 1/2 minutes between acts.  We painted a mural on the back wall of snow and fir trees going off in the distance to give added effect during Act 2 (as the outdoor area off the terrace.) Anyone who wants photos of the 2 sets, just send me your e-mail address and I'll forward photos to you.  My regular e-mail address is tejastornado@hotmal.com or theatre@bosqueconservatory.com.  The audience was really overwhelmed with the change in our two sets and it was so easily done.  Did have to have good carpenters to build the "good" sets (from luan wood) and make sure they slid together well.  We hooked them with latch hooks.  We had each flat attached to a platform for sturdiness. We didn't make the fireplace wall fall down in Act 2, but had the character playing Sidney Lipton fall into the room through the fireplace opening.  That got a lot of laughs for us too.   Of course, we had to clean the "brick" walls with pledge after each show, and spray paint the top crown molding back to white, but that only took a few minutes to do for the next show.