CURTIS PHILLIPS: Just watch people
when they come in and look at it and feel it.
And then, you know, sit down.
And then the lights go up, and they're in it.
My name is Curtis Phillips.
I'm the set designer for "Steel Magnolias" at the Duluth
Playhouse.
Julie and I, we met for lunch and just kind of talked.
And then I just started gathering research and imagery,
books or magazines.
And just find images that I like.
And then she came up with she shed idea,
which I had never heard of.
So once she said she shed and showed
me pictures on Facebook of her own little shed, that's
when it clicked to me that these people are younger.
They're collecting their memories and their dreams.
And they're kind of living in that world.
And that's what that image is, that she has her own things.
So that's how this design came about.
It is very collaborative.
I, and most designers, can't just
make up a world by themselves, because we don't live in it.
The actors and the directors live in it.
It's kind of a process that just sort of starts
from gathering idea.
He's very open and interested in what everyone has to say
and what the directors have for a vision.
They'll kind of take it back.
And he'll play with his ideas.
And he'll come in with something crazy.
And then we'll say, OK, that might be a little bit too
crazy.
Let's settle that down a little bit.
He'll take it back.
He'll come back with something else.
And eventually we end up with some really cool, interesting
designs that aren't typical.
They're not what you expect to see when you come see a show.
CURTIS PHILLIPS: The first paying design job
was Bristol Valley Theater in Naples, New
York, the town I grew up in.
We got paid $140 a week.
What I learned was community.
What I learned were friends and people, and how to, as a group,
create something.
While we were building the sets at night,
they were downstairs acting.
And while they were on stage acting, we were down sleeping.
So it's almost like camp.
But it wasn't.
These were professional people that we were connecting with
and working with.
And some are still good friends today.
And that was 20 years ago.
Yeah, community, it's a huge important part of my life
is creating it together.
That's a really collaborative thing
to work with a shop, someone who is going to build it for us.
The shop here is awesome.
And they're artistic, so they know how to build it.
They know kind of what my intentions are,
even if I might screw something up
or might design it in a weird way, they know how to fix it.
Typically, in the production process,
one of the first things you sort of focusing on
is your scenic design.
Once you're past the point where you have a scenic design,
all the other designers can kind of design on top of that.
The director can start staging on top of that,
but that's kind of your canvas that you start working from.
This is the plan.
This is the theater itself, all of that.
And then this is the furniture and scenery
on stage from the top view.
It's done in a CAD program called Vectorworks.
And then these are actually the walls that are drafted.
And then this is the house.
And this is the shop's version of it.
So they've drawn on this.
I love that.
I think it's absolutely beautiful.
But this is how they collaborate with me.
And you can tell the love that they have to do it.
That's my favorite part, so when I work with other people
is to see how much they actually attach themselves to things.
You spend so much time just feeling it, looking at it,
and adjusting it, and changing it.
Then you do kind of get a little attached to it.
Yesterday, it was just the shell.
It was just bare.
And once we applied this another layer onto,
this other element, that's when it becomes a home.
That's kind of the interesting thing about Curtis's designs
is they're usually very flushed out like this.
It's very lived in.
It feels like you're in a place that actually exists.
The first show I ever did here was "Scrooge"
that someone else designed.
And I bought that.
So I try to keep using it over and over again.
And the owl is from a show we did last year that we never
used, actually, on a set.
And I vowed I would use it from now on,
so I put it in every show that we do here.
I tend to dress sets.
And I like to do that a lot.
The idea of the she shed, the idea
of the world that we created, is a mixture
of Truvy, which is this salon owner's name.
It's her memories put together.
But we wanted memories of her son and kids kind of spread
throughout the room.
And then even her husband's items were kind of stuffed
into the corner.
And then she shoved them all into one area,
like his fishing equipment and his cooler and his box of beer.
Without all the set dressing it still looks great,
but you know, that just kind of is the final little detail that
really makes you feel at home.
There are two things that will go on stage later that I always
put in every show.
So I'm not going to--
I can't give the answer.
And then preview night, I'll be upstairs
and watch a little bit.
And that's when I know we're done.