Dry Land

Scenic Design Concept, 2023

This project was a solo exploration of design for Ruby Rae Spiegel’s coming-of-age drama, Dry Land. The play takes place almost entirely in a pool locker room, telling the story of high school swimmers as they prepare for college and explore their sexualities and identities. Designed for the Front Space at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, a blackbox venue with two seating banks on adjacent sides of the playing space, the scenery uses the naturally rectilinear shape of the playing space to create a boxed-in, tight locker room space. The space is intentionally bare and drab, playing in to the repetitive monotony the characters experience in their day-to-day lives with the repeating patterns on the tile wall, uniform lockers and benches, and cement floor.

The high walls and low fluorescent lights, as well as the bright shapes contrasted by the black void of the theatre, make the space tight and almost claustrophobic. Long benches, three in total, can be brought on and off and oriented in positions perpendicular/parallel to the stage floor to create various options for blocking and stage pictures. The curtains, emblematic of showers found in a locker room, can be opened and closed for various entrances and exits. The fluorescent fixtures above the stage, as well as a “pool” of glowing blue light at the top of the main wall, can be used to create interesting lighting looks to reflect the mood of the scene.