1/3 : As it was set in suburban Australia, 1970 - the concept of a picket fence felt natural. However there is a play on the surrealist factor of the script as well as the numbing Australian sun. 

Hinting at what was to come.  

2/3 : By no means the face of the magician in the play, but a suggestion at who he or she was to become and the role they were to play in the imagination piece. 

3/3 : One of the big issues I knew we were going to face was 'the whale scene' where a life size whale was to appear on stage (reminder: suburban Australia 1970) for about 3 minutes. So I thought this might tempt the audience.

And I don't like doing things half-way.

I love the theatre and I love actors, but more than ever I love the crew. 

A scene I looked forward to every night, the very first song performed (by a dear friend of mine too, I might add) that highlighted some key features of the set as well as brought out elements of what was to come, with clever lighting by a clever lighting designer. 

One of the bigger problems to solve on this project had been that our magnificent writers wrote with such vigour and enthusiasm, that some scenes moved from the lobby of the hotel straight onto the 12th floor. Easily done in film, or with large theatre productions. However, in a University theatre with a minimal budget, this took some thinking. How did we solve it?

We flew in a whole floor of course.  

Loads of fun that resulted in loads of laughs as I had photoshopped this actors face into many different 'ancestor' portraits, some of which had also been female. 

He got to keep them all.  

A scene change created simply through lighting and a gobo.