Detroit

Lisa D'Amour

Lakeside Community Theater June 2023

Director Elizabeth Kirkland

Set build Mike Straub

The Setting

Detroit is set in a “first ring” suburb outside of a midsize American city. These are the suburbs that comprise the first “ring” of houses outside the city proper. They were built in the late 1950s, smaller houses of outdated design. The kind of house many people today would consider a “starter house,” or a house you would want to purchase, live in, and keep your eye on the lot next door so you could buy that, knock both houses down, and build a doublelot house.
Detroit is set in the backyards of the two neighbors houses and begs the question, "How well do you know your neighbors?"
The audience was configured to sit on either side of the backyards where they could look at each other during the play.

Designs

Challenges

The biggest challenge is Ben and Marys' house burns down at the end of scene 7. Scene 8 is the burned out house. I made the house walls out of foam panels that were light and easy to remove. The underlying structure looked liked burned studs and water damaged siding. The double hung window came out as a single unit after removing a pin.

Kenny and Sharons' house has a deck that is built in blackouts between scenes 1-4. During scene 4 Ben steps through the deck. The deck is built as a frame and then 3 sections of 3 deck boards, which just sit on top of the frame. The end board on the last deck section is cut into 3 pieces which are held together with bungee cords. The underside of the board has metal bands hold athin slat of wood that runs the length of the underside of the board. The slat holds the board flat, but gives a nice wood breaking sound when the board is stepped on. The broken wood is under the board so the actor is not in danger of being hurt. Ben steps on the board causing it to fall down to the stage making a very wood snapping noise. Ben then grabs his lower leg while holding a squib that makes it look like it is bleeding. The effect looked so real, the audience would jump every show.

The umbrella is supposed to close on Kennys's head during scene 2 and then the umbrella is pulled out of the table and set aside. I built a foot trigger into what looks like a support on the umbrella stand. A music wire cable loop is attached to a hook on the trigger which caused the umbrella to close via a custom mechanism on the umbrella. The cable was detached from the trigger so the umbrella can be removed mid scene.

During the scene 7, Kenny lights a fire in the Aftuca Fire Pit. The fire needs to look like a real camp fire. I create smoke using ultrasonic misters and a variable speed fan. The fire is red and yellow lights. The whole thing is DMX controlled from the lighting booth. With 2 levels of mist and variable speed on the fan the fire can start out small or can get bigger as needed.

During scene 7 the cast break the patio chairs and put them on the fire pit to make the campfire bigger. The show ran 4 shows a week for 3 weeks so breaking real chairs would cost way to much. The Z Chairs are a visually interesting chair that usually cause a polar response. They are 2 sides with wooden slats that fit in deep dados to form the seat, seat back and bottom support. Each chair has strings that winds through screw eyes on each side that hold the slats in place. When the string is untied, the sides can be pulled apart causing the slats to fall out. One of the actors got a little over exuberant and smashed a couple of chairs during the run.