Maybe the collective carpentry prowess of your group couldn’t build a birdhouse much less a set. Maybe you remember that the last time that you had the resident carpenter in your church build you a set you had to drive an actor to the emergency room. You’re tempted to throw up your hands and say, “Dear Lord, if only there were some simple rules or guidelines that would help us get through this show!”
Don’t worry, help as arrived. As a set builder for several shows I’ve seen things some things go horribly wrong and other things go horribly right. I’ve worked on shows that were terribly convoluted and other shows where it seemed that the set practically built itself. I’ve built that one set piece that took several hours to build but was only seen onstage for six minutes. And through all those years of building sets I longed for just ten simple rules that all theater’s or theater groups could follow that would save everyone time and money!
So without further ado…
The Ten Tech Commandments
Thou Shalt Not Bite off More than You can Chew:
This can be broken in more than a few ways and often very innocently. It starts with pride. You think that with your skills and your people that you can take on building the entire set without any help. Or you feel that because you have two or three builders on call that you can keep shoveling more and more set pieces on top of them. But remember that while you can always have fundraisers to get more money you will never be able to get back the time. And as deadlines approach the more that you took on makes you and your group work harder and harder taking your focus away from what is really important, God’s message.
Thou Shalt Not Use Nails or Glue:
There are some applications in conventional stagecraft where this rule can and must be broken but the spirit of the rule is this… Theatre is a temporary art form. A show goes up on Wednesday and closes on Sunday and the audience goes on with their lives and the Drama Group goes on to the next project. If the writer of Ecclesiastes was a theatre person he would still use the words “vapor in the wind” to describe it. In essence whatever set you build you are going to have to take apart a little while later. Nails and glue are meant to be permanent. And the more time that you have to take to take them apart is more time that you can’t spend doing something else.
Thou Shalt Not Kill Your Actors:
You might be aware of the stereotype of actors being a clumsy lot. While some things are out of your control there are a lot of things that can be avoided if people just take the time to inspect their work afterward or take into account the safety of the actors BEFORE they start work on the project.
Thou Shalt Have a Back Up Plan: Murphy will strike at the time that is the most inconvenient to you. Things will get broken in dress rehearsal; very important projects won’t get done in time or be missing a very valuable piece that can only be found in a hardware store forty miles away. Never think that it won’t happen to you. Bad things can happen if you build an entire show around a pivotal set piece only to realize that an audience will never see it. A back up plan in the planning phase can help save hours of worrying later. Remember, Murphy will always show up, it is only our job to be ready for his visit.
Thou Shalt Not Make something that You will Never use Again and then Keep it:
This came from my days as a college theatre student spending untold hours in the shop basement tearing apart set pieces that hadn’t seen daylight for years that people had just shoved down there willy nilly after a show. They were always oddly shaped and took long sweaty hours to pull apart. The foundation of all set pieces are stock platforms and flats (simple units that are all the same size and can be put together to build a set. I’ll be talking about these in later posts) It is common nature to think “out of sight out of mind” when it comes to storing your props and set pieces. But when you’re putting stuff away remember that if you can’t see yourself using it again in the next three shows then it will just be taking up space in storage that could be used by more useful things. It might take more time to take it apart but the investment pays for itself when you don’t have to do it later.
Thou Shalt Never Throw Anything Away:
This may seem like a contradiction of the previous rule but it has its own wisdom in it. The previous rule tells you to take apart anything that you won’t use again. It never said to throw what it was made of away. A ten foot wide hexagonal platform may not be used again but the wood that it’s made of, the screws that you used to put it together, might make reappearances in another show. In essence if it isn’t taking up too much space and you see yourself using it again then by all means hold onto it and never let it go. This especially is true with special props and costumes that one only finds once in a flea market or a yard sale.
Thou Shalt Never take a Shoestring Budget Seriously:
I worked with a technical director once that seemed complacent with putting subpar sets onstage. The one show that broke the camel’s back he put up flats with jagged plywood edges showing, gaps in seems, and mismatched flooring on the walls. He was content with hanging pieces with shoe string and holding things together with duct tape. It was a set that I was ashamed of putting in front of an audience. He gave me a long list of excuses about not having the proper budget or trying to meet deadlines. To make a long story short he doesn’t work with me anymore. As much as a Drama Ministry has to see its actors as ambassadors for the Church likewise a set is also the ambassador of the group. If the audience sees set pieces hanging from shoe strings or ragged edges on the set or other forms of shoddy workmanship it reflects badly on the group and the tech people as good stewards of time and the Church’s resources. I emphasize that one should make every effort to save time in building a set but it should NEVER be at the expense of the overall workmanship. Take pride in your work and make every diligent effort to make it right the first time and someone won’t have to come along behind you and waste time fixing it.
Thou Shalt not get OCD:
Again this is a rule that seems like a direct contradiction of the rule that came before it. I emphasized taking every effort to make sure that the finished product is something that you can be proud of and that the audience will enjoy. But what every beginning set builder must realize is that the audience will be looking at the set from a distance. Very rarely will any member of the audience be less than ten feet away from your set if you’re in a sanctuary setting. So when something starts bother you about the set. Step back to the first pew and look at it. Now go back to the last pew. That flaw that is bugging you when you stand onstage will be barely noticeable in the first pew and at the last pew you won’t be able to see it at all. So remember to take a step back. If you’re focusing more on the set than you are on the story of the play then there’s a problem.
Thou Shalt not Compensate for Bad Acting with a Beautiful Set:
You got all the coolest lighting effects and the newest thing in sound equipment. Your revolving set would rival the stages of Broadway itself. Except that when your actors get onstage they can’t remember their lines, they don’t know where they’re going, and they break character every five seconds. If the only reason that you built that set was to give the audience something to look at besides the bad actors then there’s a big problem.
Thou Shalt not Put all of the Work on “that guy with the tools”:
It’s easy when someone in the church steps up and volunteers to help out with technical stuff to praise the Lord and gladly shovel off all of the stuff onto him. But remember that we are the Body of Christ. While we delegate the work of walking to our feet and legs the brain still tells the feet to walk and where to walk. The good body works together doing what it needs to do. While it is smart to delegate tasks to the people who are most qualified to do them that doesn’t mean that once you give it to someone else that it isn’t your responsibility to check in on their progress, or that it’s not your fault as The Director of Drama Ministry when something goes wrong. If someone needs help make every effort to get them assistance. If someone voices concerns over deadlines or budget take them seriously and discuss options with them.
Now my ten commandments for building sets will never be like God’s Ten Commandments that are all inclusive and can never be changed. But over almost a decade building sets I’ve found that there are ten guidelines that can help everybody…especially drama ministry groups that are just starting out. After your group has gotten a little more experience under your belt you’ll find that you can see the times where you can bend a rule every now and then. My rules are based on the idea that since most Drama Ministry groups don’t have all of the money that they ever wanted for a show then time has to be their greatest asset. So these commandments are meant to keep theatre groups from wasting the time that they have and avoid spending any money that you have.
Don’t worry, help as arrived. As a set builder for several shows I’ve seen things some things go horribly wrong and other things go horribly right. I’ve worked on shows that were terribly convoluted and other shows where it seemed that the set practically built itself. I’ve built that one set piece that took several hours to build but was only seen onstage for six minutes. And through all those years of building sets I longed for just ten simple rules that all theater’s or theater groups could follow that would save everyone time and money!
So without further ado…
The Ten Tech Commandments
Thou Shalt Not Bite off More than You can Chew:
This can be broken in more than a few ways and often very innocently. It starts with pride. You think that with your skills and your people that you can take on building the entire set without any help. Or you feel that because you have two or three builders on call that you can keep shoveling more and more set pieces on top of them. But remember that while you can always have fundraisers to get more money you will never be able to get back the time. And as deadlines approach the more that you took on makes you and your group work harder and harder taking your focus away from what is really important, God’s message.
Thou Shalt Not Use Nails or Glue:
There are some applications in conventional stagecraft where this rule can and must be broken but the spirit of the rule is this… Theatre is a temporary art form. A show goes up on Wednesday and closes on Sunday and the audience goes on with their lives and the Drama Group goes on to the next project. If the writer of Ecclesiastes was a theatre person he would still use the words “vapor in the wind” to describe it. In essence whatever set you build you are going to have to take apart a little while later. Nails and glue are meant to be permanent. And the more time that you have to take to take them apart is more time that you can’t spend doing something else.
Thou Shalt Not Kill Your Actors:
You might be aware of the stereotype of actors being a clumsy lot. While some things are out of your control there are a lot of things that can be avoided if people just take the time to inspect their work afterward or take into account the safety of the actors BEFORE they start work on the project.
Thou Shalt Have a Back Up Plan: Murphy will strike at the time that is the most inconvenient to you. Things will get broken in dress rehearsal; very important projects won’t get done in time or be missing a very valuable piece that can only be found in a hardware store forty miles away. Never think that it won’t happen to you. Bad things can happen if you build an entire show around a pivotal set piece only to realize that an audience will never see it. A back up plan in the planning phase can help save hours of worrying later. Remember, Murphy will always show up, it is only our job to be ready for his visit.
Thou Shalt Not Make something that You will Never use Again and then Keep it:
This came from my days as a college theatre student spending untold hours in the shop basement tearing apart set pieces that hadn’t seen daylight for years that people had just shoved down there willy nilly after a show. They were always oddly shaped and took long sweaty hours to pull apart. The foundation of all set pieces are stock platforms and flats (simple units that are all the same size and can be put together to build a set. I’ll be talking about these in later posts) It is common nature to think “out of sight out of mind” when it comes to storing your props and set pieces. But when you’re putting stuff away remember that if you can’t see yourself using it again in the next three shows then it will just be taking up space in storage that could be used by more useful things. It might take more time to take it apart but the investment pays for itself when you don’t have to do it later.
Thou Shalt Never Throw Anything Away:
This may seem like a contradiction of the previous rule but it has its own wisdom in it. The previous rule tells you to take apart anything that you won’t use again. It never said to throw what it was made of away. A ten foot wide hexagonal platform may not be used again but the wood that it’s made of, the screws that you used to put it together, might make reappearances in another show. In essence if it isn’t taking up too much space and you see yourself using it again then by all means hold onto it and never let it go. This especially is true with special props and costumes that one only finds once in a flea market or a yard sale.
Thou Shalt Never take a Shoestring Budget Seriously:
I worked with a technical director once that seemed complacent with putting subpar sets onstage. The one show that broke the camel’s back he put up flats with jagged plywood edges showing, gaps in seems, and mismatched flooring on the walls. He was content with hanging pieces with shoe string and holding things together with duct tape. It was a set that I was ashamed of putting in front of an audience. He gave me a long list of excuses about not having the proper budget or trying to meet deadlines. To make a long story short he doesn’t work with me anymore. As much as a Drama Ministry has to see its actors as ambassadors for the Church likewise a set is also the ambassador of the group. If the audience sees set pieces hanging from shoe strings or ragged edges on the set or other forms of shoddy workmanship it reflects badly on the group and the tech people as good stewards of time and the Church’s resources. I emphasize that one should make every effort to save time in building a set but it should NEVER be at the expense of the overall workmanship. Take pride in your work and make every diligent effort to make it right the first time and someone won’t have to come along behind you and waste time fixing it.
Thou Shalt not get OCD:
Again this is a rule that seems like a direct contradiction of the rule that came before it. I emphasized taking every effort to make sure that the finished product is something that you can be proud of and that the audience will enjoy. But what every beginning set builder must realize is that the audience will be looking at the set from a distance. Very rarely will any member of the audience be less than ten feet away from your set if you’re in a sanctuary setting. So when something starts bother you about the set. Step back to the first pew and look at it. Now go back to the last pew. That flaw that is bugging you when you stand onstage will be barely noticeable in the first pew and at the last pew you won’t be able to see it at all. So remember to take a step back. If you’re focusing more on the set than you are on the story of the play then there’s a problem.
Thou Shalt not Compensate for Bad Acting with a Beautiful Set:
You got all the coolest lighting effects and the newest thing in sound equipment. Your revolving set would rival the stages of Broadway itself. Except that when your actors get onstage they can’t remember their lines, they don’t know where they’re going, and they break character every five seconds. If the only reason that you built that set was to give the audience something to look at besides the bad actors then there’s a big problem.
Thou Shalt not Put all of the Work on “that guy with the tools”:
It’s easy when someone in the church steps up and volunteers to help out with technical stuff to praise the Lord and gladly shovel off all of the stuff onto him. But remember that we are the Body of Christ. While we delegate the work of walking to our feet and legs the brain still tells the feet to walk and where to walk. The good body works together doing what it needs to do. While it is smart to delegate tasks to the people who are most qualified to do them that doesn’t mean that once you give it to someone else that it isn’t your responsibility to check in on their progress, or that it’s not your fault as The Director of Drama Ministry when something goes wrong. If someone needs help make every effort to get them assistance. If someone voices concerns over deadlines or budget take them seriously and discuss options with them.
Now my ten commandments for building sets will never be like God’s Ten Commandments that are all inclusive and can never be changed. But over almost a decade building sets I’ve found that there are ten guidelines that can help everybody…especially drama ministry groups that are just starting out. After your group has gotten a little more experience under your belt you’ll find that you can see the times where you can bend a rule every now and then. My rules are based on the idea that since most Drama Ministry groups don’t have all of the money that they ever wanted for a show then time has to be their greatest asset. So these commandments are meant to keep theatre groups from wasting the time that they have and avoid spending any money that you have.
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