Death of a Salesman

The Set

One of the things that is really special about Gallery7 is it's theatre in the round. Which provides for a much more intimate environment for amateur theatre. Most of the audience is only a few feet away from you. This provides a unique challenge for the set. Most theatre sets you see only have to be visible from the front, so usually props only painted to look real from one side will do. This is practical for normal theatre because it's cheap and the prop can be made of light materials easy to move.

In theatre in the round every single thing on stage has to be convincing from all possible angels, so instead of props we have to use real furniture and appliances. Nothing else will do. This makes for difficulty because we have to carry a 200 pound desk on and off stage twice a night. The theatre is a little understaffed so actors who are not on have to help with set changes. This is difficult because you have to change out of your costume and into all black clothes. To cut down on sound we don't wear shoes, just black socks.

One obstacle we had to work around was the kitchen. The stove is a genuine cast iron 1950's Hotternhell. It weighs 500 lbs. Obviously we couldn't move the kitchen set so we had to work around it. The courtyard to the left of the kitchen becomes the restaurant, Howard Wagner's office, and at the end it becomes the graveyard for Willy's burial.

This is the fridge we needed the "Hastings" logo for. (Thanks, Jack.)	This is Biff and Happy's Bedroom, which gets transformed into Charlie's office and part of the restaurant.
This is Willy Loman's bedroom from the kitchen.	Which later becomes the hotel room where Willy has his affair with the "Woman"
This is the sound board and light controls overlooking the stage.	This is the "wire" recorder that Howard Wagner is supposed to be so preoccupied with. Actually it's a tape recorder from the 1960's, which is the oldest thing we could find. Wire recorders were only around for a short time and were quickly replaced by tape recorders by the Korean war. I had to lug this onstage every night, I swear it weighs 40 pounds. Also I had to be careful to make sure the sound was turned off every time I used it onstage, because no one really had any idea what the hell was on that tape.