KISS ME KATE

BY COLE PORTER AND SAM AND BELLA SPEWAK

Designing a musical is a very exciting assignment that makes logistical demands in the form of multiple scenes, some intimate and others able to accommodate dance and chorus numbers. Changes and transitions must be as rapid and smooth as possible. Kiss Me Kate, in particular, requires the designer to create two separate worlds: the contemporary story of clashing theatrical egos and the Renaissance period musical play-within-the-play based on The Taming of the Shrew. For this production, my design had to work for the two theatre companies who co-produced it—one with a thrust stage and the other a conventional proscenium stage.

My ground plan utilizes two periaktoi (three-sided towers) and a revolving stage that could position a central multi-level structure in four configurations:

• For the play-within-the play
  1. The painted architectural scenic elements of the stage scenery
• For the grittier contemporary scenes
  2. Backstage areas of the theatre
  3. The adjoining dressing rooms of the two leads where the most important book scenes take place
  4. The alley outside the theatre.

The "Shrew" scenes were ablaze in vivid color, while the book scenes utilized a more restrained palette. This ground plan addressed the contrasting physical spaces of the two theatre companies simply by positioning the revolve downstage in the thrust-stage theatre and further upstage in the proscenium theatre. Furthermore, although the worlds of the "book" and the play-within-a-play were distinctly separate, an ornate gilded portal enclosed a permanent surround of blue brick. This combined the feel of the two settings, suggesting both Italian frescoes and the bare brick of the backstage theatrical milieu. This served as a reminder of how similar these worlds actually are and reinforced the reality that both issues of love and pride.