Nottingham college | Theatre Designer

When the rain stops falling - Nottingham college

When the rain stops falling

Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling is a play about family, betrayal and forgiveness, spanning four generations and spanning two continents. It was commissioned and first produced by Brink Productions in Australia, developed in collaboration with Hossein Valamanesh. It premiered at the Scott Theatre, University of Adelaide, on 28 February 2008, co-presented by Brink Productions, the State Theatre Company of South Australia and the 2008 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts.s

First ideas

For my first ideas I read the play and found each little design element that I could represent in my set. Me and another girl called EVA work on this real projected but unfortunately couldn't finished due to COVID-19.

I sketched out my ideas after i wrote out my notes from the play. I first thought about how I could make a road to be the main element that represents the journey of life you see in the play and the impactful scenes shown on the road.

We then both thought about projection to show the completely different location and atmosphere which would help keep the simplistic set initial idea from the director Amy.

The rooms and locations

Elizabeths laws room 1959 and 1988

Adelaide 2013

The Uluru and The cemetery

The holders and the windows

The stage

Here I was allowed to accesses the theatre in the Nottingham girls high school which I took a range of front, side, ground photos to use to place our set and props digital drawing in the realistic stage. We wanted to bring out the downstage into the front audience to create a more of a thrust staging which we are able to do by taking out the front 3 rows and creating a floor.

We also were able to get the technical plans to the theatre which we used to place the certain props and projector without the need to guess.

Main ideas

The first idea was he create a light up box that included only a large table , the stove and the coat rack. This box had real water falling around the edge to resemble the rain never stopping. This could have been achieved with tubing pipes connected to a pump and water filter system that would have been placed in the grid of the theatre.

The water could have also been caught by the table that would have been visible to the audience using clear acrylic sheets, which would have been full by the end of the play.

The second idea I used the same boxes but four of them placed separately on the stage with the same water tubing connection.

Each box would be coloured a different LED strip that has a diffuser covering to dim the lighting.

There would also be separated tables and chair that suit each era that can then be placed all together in the middle of the road to form the large table.

The third design was the same water system box but elongated to fit a thrust setting. The set would have the table at the far end filling with water while the entrance, toilet, coat hanger an stove would ve at the other end.

The floor would be lit up with LED strips to try and sperated the acting to shows the different rooms.

This design would be perfect for the car crash scene and to show more of a simple set. It would also allow the acting to be down along the whole road, acting as a timeline.

Expanded main ideas

Idea 1

Idea 2

Idea 3

The three main ideas were all used and incorporated to make the final set design.

From the first idea we took the main one big box with water running down he open sides. We also took the idea of beach wooden features. In the second idea we took the the thrust type layout which allowed the road to be longer and create more open space in front of the box and we took the broken up pieces of car design. From the last idea we took the LED strips around the box as well as the back projection placement.

White card model

This white card model is in 1:25 scale and is the final set design. Me and Eva both worked togther on this model, using white foam board, mount board and wire. As you can see the desing is quite simple leaving a range of room for the actors to walk around.

The box was 5m by 5m and placed in the centre of the stage. The stove and coat hanger are placed on either sides outside the box more towards the back to place them out the way. They are both just above 1m70 height. The road would have been a painted strip that will run from the bottom of the projection to the end of th downstage. The projection is 1m away from the box to allow acting space behind. There is also some white small beach fences at the bottom corners of the stage to represent that beach location.