Outraged Hearts
Set and prop design for a dual presentation of Tennessee Williams plays with The Fire Weeds an experimental, female-driven theater company established in New Orleans in 2023 by co-artistic directors and actresses Jaclyn Bethany and Lin Gathright. The company is dedicated to exploring and reinterpreting classic American drama through a distinct feminist lens.
My Role
This production marked my debut designing for theatre. Working with a micro-budget, resourcefulness was a must. I sourced materials for free from set sales, NY Materials for the Arts, Facebook Marketplace, and personal items. I also managed logistics, transport, and storage.
Spatial Design
The Fire Weeds needed to adapt Outraged Hearts for a unique performance space on the second floor of a brownstone, featuring a front room, a back room, and a connecting landing. Our concept was to transform the entire floor into a single cohesive home, the parlor in the front and the bedroom in the back. While the first play primarily unfolded in the front room and the second in the back, the immersive layout allowed the audience to move freely between spaces. Every set had to be meticulously planned to accommodate audience seating, lighting rigs, props, and furniture within a historic residential footprint.
Two Rooms, Two Sets
The Pretty Trap is a one-act comedic precursor to Tennessee Williams's masterwork The Glass Menagerie. The plot centers on the Wingfield family hosting a “gentleman caller” for dinner in a cramped St. Louis apartment during the Great Depression, where the mother, Amanda, is desperate to secure a match for her shy daughter, Laura.
Interior: Panic is a short, one-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1946 as an early draft and psychological precursor to A Streetcar Named Desire. The play depicts a woman, Blanche, descending into psychosis while staying with her sister and brother-in-law in a suffocating New Orleans apartment, seeking refuge from a scandal that abruptly ended her teaching career.
Director Jaclyn Bethany paired these two works because they both spotlight the internal psychology of women grappling with the rigid expectations of society.
Creating the Parlor for ‘The Pretty Trap’
To transform the front room into a 1930/40s sitting and dining area, we audited the existing furniture on-site. Since the back room had previously been used for storage, it offered a lot of unexpected options. I also sourced period decor from a set sale for the television show Severance, alongside utilizing banners and decorative elements from a previous iteration of the play. After taking measurements, I mapped out the spatial layout through initial hand sketches before rendering the final plans in SketchUp.
Creating the Bedroom for ‘Interior: Panic’
Because the bedroom was tight, we had to maximize every square foot. The staging required a projector to display a live video feed onto a custom screen. By hanging a curtain across the bay window, we simultaneously created a hidden changing area and a projection surface. We then routed cabling through the upper corner of the room into an adjacent bathroom, which served as the makeshift control room for shooting the live footage. To accommodate the actors' blocking, there werelast-minute layout adjustments—ultimately shifting the bed against the side wall to open up the floor plan.
Stairs and Landing
The connecting landing served as a welcome area for guests before the show and a holding space during intermission. The space needed to maintain immersion while remaining a comfortable environment for the audience. To emphasize the dreaminess of the plays, we styled the staircase and shelves with ambient candlelight housed in blue mason jars.
