The King and I

 
This picture shows most of the set.  It is a basic unit set.  The basic set starts with the large platform in the center.  There is a bridge upstage that crosses over a fountain.  The four heads that create the wings are always there and they are attached to some 3 x 3 steel with "capitals" on the top.  The backdrop is some four foot wide fabric with some stencil work on it.  Also downstage there are two smaller fountains.  They can barely be seen.
In this picture you can see more fabric panels.  The four heads were actually given to the theatre.  There were six in total, but only four were used for the show.  Originally they were used when Hong Kong was turned back over to China from The United Kingdom.  They were on the docks in NYC.  We added the "hat" and also the bands across their foreheads. 
Here you can see one of the drops for the play inside of The King and I.  The play is Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Also in this picture is a better view of the smaller fountains downstage. 
This is probably the best view of all of the fountain.  We used a pond liner to hold all the water in and used a pond fountain for the actual fountain.  We also used some broken mirror in the bottom to give a shimmering effect.  It was actually plexi-glass mirror so it wouldn't rip the pond liner.  The upstage fountains were built very similar, but they are not quite as deep.  These are about a foot deep. 
This is the bamboo fly.  This opened the show with people climbing all over it.  It was a great image.  It is made out of painted aluminum pipe.  Originally it was larger and going to be made out of steel pipe, but after some calculations it wound up being decided that it was too heavy. 
This shows the two headers in the show.  The downstage one flew in for the palace scenes.  There are many intricate cut outs on this piece as well as in the rest of the show.  The lighting designer mimicked this with template units around the set. 
This is a picture of the upstage area.  Shown is the curved bridge going over the fountain.  It is much easier to see the detail and curves of the platform. 
   

This page was last updated on 07/26/2008 .