John Blondell and I have known each other for nearly ten years. He’s the director of the experimental (and very fun) Lit Moon Theatre Company, which I’ve been involved with as a designer. I think he’s one of the most creative people I ever had the pleasure of working with, so it was a big treat to go up to Santa Barbara today to talk about working together on a production of Samuel Beckett’s short plays at the College he works at in Montecito. The pieces are quite short, so the set design has to accommodate all of them being done in the same performance, while simultaneously dealing with Beckett’s sometimes very specific direction on the way things are arranged within the space.
We start work immediately, so I have a small stack of scripts to read and figure out, and then I’ll sketch the design for the space. I’m interested in dog fighting pits and bullfighting arenas as a source. Rough wood, dirt, white-washed, peeling planks, sawdust.
With a bit of luck I’ll get Lucas to build it for me, as he did when I did the tree for Mitchell last year.
