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A Very Theatrical Q&A

When Maggie Harcourt’s talented set-designer pal, Clare Thornthwaite, designed and built and, well, truly brought to life, the Theatrical model box from Maggie’s most recent book, we could hardly hide our excitement. We wanted more and we wanted details! Luckily for us Clare and Maggie got together revealed all…

CLARE: We met on a theatre production course at the Theatre Royal Bath a couple of years ago. Was that inspiration for Theatrical, or were you already working on it and the course was part of your research?  MAGGIE: That course really was where Theatrical started, because over that week we had to learn everything about what it takes to produce a show for a professional theatre. I'd always been interested in how theatres work (which was why I was on the course!) but having the chance to see so much of what happens in the background - even before you actually get backstage - really made me want to write about theatres. There was something about the fact we were all getting to hang out backstage and go in and out of the stage door to the studio theatre every day while a show was running through its dress rehearsals in the main theatre that was so special: I wanted to try and put some of that feeling into a book. And when we had the day learning about stage management... that was it. I started hearing Hope in my head right after that. 

CLARE: I love how the model box is like a character within the book. Why did you decide to make that a part of the story? MAGGIE: It was one of those things that I didn't plan at first, but which grew with the story. To begin with, the fact Hope has a scale model of an auditorium in her room was really just a way of showing how seriously she takes her dream to work as a professional stage manager – but then, the model of the Earl's stage that sits in the production office of the theatre (and which the creative team and designers would have used to help them visualise how the show would look on-stage) became a way for Luke to send messages to her, letting her know how he felt without having to actually say it. To everyone else in the theatre, the model is just part of the furniture, or one of the tools they use every day, but to Hope it's really special because it's a symbol of everything she wants. Including Luke...

CLARE: You really capture the magic of the theatre and the fun and drama that goes on behind the scenes. It felt so authentic: how did you go about making sure the backstage world of your theatre seemed real? MAGGIE: A lot of research! Quite a lot of my notes from the Theatre Royal Bath course went into it, and I read a couple of the stage management texts we'd been told about on the course too. Something that makes me very happy is that after I was finished with them, they got to fulfil their theatre destiny when I gave them to a student just starting out on the stage management course at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. As well as that, I got in touch with the lovely backstage team at the Bristol Old Vic itself and they let me visit and poke around for a morning, including all the way up on the fly floor above the stage. The Bristol Old Vic is a big part of the Earl's, really - there's bits of it built into the DNA of the Earl's, the theatre I invented for the book, along with the Theatre Royal Bath, the Old Vic in London and probably every theatre I've ever been in. But the feel and atmosphere of the backstage areas definitely came from the Bristol Old Vic and the Theatre Royal Bath. Apart from that, it was a lot of reading and daydreaming: I subscribed to The Stage and read it every week - especially the columns, and Jess Gow's articles about stage management; I read reviews of just about every big show that opened, just as background. The 'behind the scenes' programme from Harry Potter & the Cursed Child was super-helpful because it talked so much about the process of building a show from the very beginning, and there's an amazing photo book called Unseen London which has an entire backstage section. I felt like if I could picture the theatre in my head, from the corridors under the stage all the way up to the very top of the auditorium and beyond to the studio at the very top of the building, hopefully I could make it real enough for everyone else to see it too: something your amazing model box makes even easier!  

Clare Thornthwaite building a model box for "Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour". 

MAGGIE: First of all, I have to tell you how much I LOVE the Theatrical model box you built. How do you even start making something like that, and how do you capture the spirit of a whole theatre in something so small?  CLARE: I’m so pleased you like the model box, I really enjoyed making it too! The best place to start is with the plans. I contacted the Bristol Old Vic theatre who very kindly sent me technical drawings of their stage. In theatre design, we generally work to the scale 1:25 which means for every 1cm on the model equals 25cm on the real stage. The model I made for you is at a smaller scale of 1:50 so the figures are only 35mm high. It can be quite fiddly working on something so small, but the results are always rewarding and super cute! The black box is made from foam board so it is lightweight and easy to transport and the details on the stage are made from thinner pieces of card. I took inspiration from the beautiful book cover design, printing out the letters and hanging them with fine pieces of wire. The trees and hearts are cut out by hand with a sharp scalpel knife and coloured using acrylic paints and chalk pastels. It’s all held together with plenty of super glue! Traditionally the model box is a tool for everyone on the production. For the designer, the great thing is that you can see what is working and change the elements that don’t look right. The director can make decisions on where the action will take place. The actors use it to see where their entrances and exits will be and what obstacles they may need to negotiate, like steps or big pieces of furniture for example. A production manager will use the model box to work out a budget for how much things will cost to make and the set builders can work out how to actually construct the set. Most of all it helps everyone visualise how the show will hopefully look in the end. 

MAGGIE: What drew you to the world of theatre, and what do you love most about it?  CLARE: I imagine like a lot of people, one of my earliest memories of the theatre is going to see a pantomime at Christmas as a child with my family. I’ve always loved dressing up and won several fancy dress competitions when I was younger so have always had an interest in costume design. I went on to university to study Interior Design which is very similar to set design, which is also where I learned how to make scale models. For me the theatre is pure escapism, I enjoy getting totally lost in a different world and being sucked into someone else's story for a couple of hours. There is something magical about the action being performed live right there in front of you and with the energy from the audience, it all adds to the unique atmosphere of the theatre. Working behind the scenes and being part of the team that makes the magic happen is pretty special. It is a very collaborative process and challenges my creativity in new and exciting ways. 

MAGGIE: What would your dream job be? If you could work on designing a new production of ANY show - whether it's a musical, a play, an opera, a ballet - what would you choose and why? CLARE: My dream job would be to design something for the Olivier Stage at the National Theatre. Under the stage is a five storey high drum revolve which gives the designer unlimited possibilities. In 2014, I saw the NT’s production of Treasure Island designed by Lizzie Clachan; when the full-size pirate ship emerged from the stage it absolutely blew my mind! I’d love to create something so amazing that it wows the audience and leaves them speechless! If I could design any show it would have to be an Agatha Christie mystery, And Then There Were None maybe? Having the power to keep the audience guessing works so well that Christie’s play The Mousetrap is the longest running play in the world. I love how audiences continue to keep the ending a secret night after night. I also really like the fashion and interior styles of the 1920s and ‘30s so this would fit with the period and would be a lovely era to design for. 

If you’d love to hear Maggie talk more about the theatre world, she’s in conversation with Amber Massie-Blomfield at the Theatre Royal Bath on Jan 17th, about her brilliant book “Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die”. Maggie also promised to bring along the Theatrical model box!