A Chair in the Life of a Theatre Designer....
The humble chair is undoubtedly the item a designer is most frequently required to incorporate into a stage set.
Random props may come and go - the watering-cans and carpet bags, the hostess trolley, the inflatable lilo. But chairs are eternal. The ornate chaise-longue, the nostalgic striped deckchair, the simple, elegant bentwood, the shapeless, sagging armchair... the list goes on and on.
And these chairs furnish our lives in a million ways. From making a tiny, perfectly-formed scale model of a rocking chair - that actually rocks - to cramming fifteen vintage school-chairs into your car boot on a rainy afternoon. Or spotting the forlorn matching pair nestling together for comfort in the City undergrowth as you hurry past on your way to a meeting.
But the most important of all is your own work chair; that chair in which you first sit down to read a script and let the magic start unfolding; the chair in which you travel to other worlds and times, that takes you on your journey to your next design.
Right now, our theatres are empty, rows of vacant seats. And designers are sitting in the dark, waiting for the magic to return.
Emily James is a set and costume designer based in Comrie, Perthshire. Her earliest memory of theatre is going with her grandparents to see the Purves Puppets production of Peter Pan at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She remember vividly being fascinated to meet the puppet operators after the show, dressed in velvety blacks - a first glimpse of the talented people who work out of sight behind the scenes.
The humble chair is undoubtedly the item a designer is most frequently required to incorporate into a stage set.
Random props may come and go - the watering-cans and carpet bags, the hostess trolley, the inflatable lilo. But chairs are eternal. The ornate chaise-longue, the nostalgic striped deckchair, the simple, elegant bentwood, the shapeless, sagging armchair... the list goes on and on.
And these chairs furnish our lives in a million ways. From making a tiny, perfectly-formed scale model of a rocking chair - that actually rocks - to cramming fifteen vintage school-chairs into your car boot on a rainy afternoon. Or spotting the forlorn matching pair nestling together for comfort in the City undergrowth as you hurry past on your way to a meeting.
But the most important of all is your own work chair; that chair in which you first sit down to read a script and let the magic start unfolding; the chair in which you travel to other worlds and times, that takes you on your journey to your next design.
Right now, our theatres are empty, rows of vacant seats. And designers are sitting in the dark, waiting for the magic to return.
Emily James is a set and costume designer based in Comrie, Perthshire. Her earliest memory of theatre is going with her grandparents to see the Purves Puppets production of Peter Pan at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She remember vividly being fascinated to meet the puppet operators after the show, dressed in velvety blacks - a first glimpse of the talented people who work out of sight behind the scenes.
