Set designer Peter King hopes to have the answer to this by the time this article goes to print.
‘‘I'm not sure how I'm going to squeeze it in,'' he said a week ago.
‘‘It's slightly terrifying.''
King was responsible for designing the set of Winston's Birthday and for setting it up in the Court Theatre, Christchurch, and then transferring it to Dunedin's Fortune Theatre.
Winston's Birthday is a co-production with the Court Theatre that had been in the works since January last year.
It had been an interesting set to design, given it was set in the 1960s and involved an upper-class British family.
‘‘In the 1960s anything goes with the aristocracy.''
Last June he began researching Winston Churchill's life and family and looking at pictures depicting the era.
‘‘Winston loved painting, and family and heritage.''Two sets were needed - one of a living room and another a garden scene.
So a fake library was constructed featuring large oversize ‘‘paintings'' - the 3.9m by 1.6m portraits were painted by Julian Southgate from photographs mentioned in the script and enlarged for the set.‘‘We had to find someone who could paint on that scale. It was good of him to do it.''He needed to keep in mind the set would need to be transported so had to fit in a truck and it also needed to fit into the different-sized stages.‘‘It had to be big enough for the Court but not too big for the Fortune and collapsible to get in the truck.''Another consideration was the need to keep the set flat, as ‘‘Churchill'' is in a wheelchair.
Usually when doing sets for shows that travelled, the props and backdrops were kept to a minimum. Winston's Birthday involved a chandelier.
‘‘It's a full-on set.''It involved searching out furniture for a sitting room of the period including chesterfield chairs.
‘‘It was almost production week when those turned up. I spent a few days at the auction houses.''
There were many trips to op shops as props such as soda siphons and crystal whisky and brandy glassware were sought out to fit out the button-back ‘‘Dean Martin'' bar.
‘‘It was a great time and a nightmare. Sourcing props in Christchurch was hard as their second hand shops are only getting re-established.''
The play is directed by former Fortune Theatre artistic director Lara Macgregor, who had always wanted to produce one of Dr Paul Baker's plays and had directed a midwinter reading of Winston's Birthday for the Court Theatre about 18 months ago.
‘‘The audience response was very strong so based on that Ross [Gumbley] decided to programme it in and asked me to direct it.''
The collaboration between the two theatres grew from there.
It helped push staff out of their comfort zones and learn how another theatre did things.
While the Court produced the show, the Dunedin connections included Ms Macgregor directing, Mr King designing the set and Hilary Halba acting as Sarah Churchill. The Fortune's stage manager also spent time at the Court.
The response from Christchurch audiences had been very positive and they had responded to Dr Baker's seamless melding of fact and fiction in the play, even the New Zealand Churchill Society.
‘‘You really feel like a fly on the wall in their living room. Spying on a very eccentric family.''
To see:
Wintson’s Birthday, Fortune Theatre, March 12 to April 2
