The Winter's Tale

I had the pleasure of working as the scenic designer for Theatre in the Garden's production of 'The Winter's Tale' at Summerhall in Edinburgh. As the production was low-budget, I primarily used materials sourced from Queen Margaret University. One of the key pieces I constructed was a big floor cloth that we painted to give it the appearance of a tile floor. I was assisted by two scenic assistants and a few assistant stage managers for the construction of this piece. As the cloth had already been used for another performance, it was a challenge to cover up the traces of the original pattern, but we managed to do so. Additionally, we created a few minor props and three boxes that were painted to resemble abstract pieces of a stone structure.

For the design process, I drew inspiration from ancient Greek stone floors and European churches. However, I ended up selecting a pattern that looked like a snowflake to reflect the winter theme of the play. The director's interpretation of the play was that it occurred in Leontes' mind while his memories were fading away. To reflect this, I decided to place the floor pattern on a slight angle to make it appear slightly off. This, along with dragging the backcloth slightly offstage, helped to make the world seem imaginative and surreal. I wanted to reflect the fading memories of Leontes by washing out parts of the pattern to add blind spots.