Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Our heritage project ‘Through the Front Door’ is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Blog about my thoughts and feelings about my set design for the heritage project ‘Through the Front Door’.  

It is Joe here; I am just writing about my feelings and why I chose the doors design for the heritage project, and it is because the idea of the cast going through the doors and having the different kind of shapes of doors could emphasize the way the doors were used in the 1800’s. 

We learned that people living at the asylums were not allowed ‘Through the Front door’, only the important staff and ‘powers that be’ were allowed in that way and everyone else had to go in the back door.

When I think about the layout of the Merlin Theatre, I imagine the design of the doors being wheeled on stage using the boards with the pins to create the doors for the show, using old textured paper drawings to show the design of all kinds of different doors, based on my research.

I made a mockup of the stage using cardboard and tape and shared it with our groups and visitors at Openstorytellers. I have edited the photograph to show a black and white image to make it look old.  

This is a work in progress – watch this space!