We did Noises Off last year on a
large?auditorium stage. I shiver to think of all the
problems we had to solve, but we solved them
almost without compromises. We built the set in
three pieces: The center piece contained the first
floor entryway, the window and the door to the
kitchen, plus the balcony and the three doors of the
second floor (closet, bedroom and archway to attic.)
The second piece was a "wing" stage right that
contained the stairs to the balcony and a landing
with the bathroom door. The third piece was another
wing, stage left, that contained the doors to the
downstairs study and bathroom. The three pieces
were on trucks (moveable platforms) that could be
moved independently. On the backstage side, the
stairs leading to the balcony were also separate,
and so was the landing inside the bathroom. So, we
actually ended up having a total of five pieces to
move. We spend just two hours plotting and
rehearsing the move. Our stage crew of four
managed to flip the set in three minutes.

This design allowed us to?have a much wider set
than?if it were built on a single platform.?A single
piece set couldn't?be any wider than the available
depth of the stage, and that would limit the width of
the set from 30 feet to about 18.

We copped out on the?the glass breaking. It was
too much trouble for the effect, and in retrospect, no
one missed it. The burglar simply pushed the
window open from the outside. The play has more
than enough?shtick even?without the damned
glass.

The most important aspect of the production was
having the basic set available from the first rehearsal
and having all props on hand. I asked the actors to
come off book right off the bat. With a play like that,
you simply can't waste rehearsal time for
memorization. The actors came having memorized
about ninety percent.

Biggest pain was blocking act II -- the pantomime
act. We spent two solid weeks working on this. We
rehearsed for a total?of six weeks, five evenings a
week from 7 to 10. On the first day of the week before
hell week,?we ran through?acts I and III and turned
the set before we went home. The following day we
did act II twice and turned the set again at the end.
On the third day we did acts I and III again. And so
on. Hell week was actually the easiest?week for all of
us. We repeated the run-through format of the
previous week for two days as dress rehearsals, we
had one tech rehearsal, and took the day off before
opening. Notice that we actually never had a?straight
run through the whole play.

Excellent reviews from our audiences justified all
the hard work that went into the production.

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