I’ve drawn too many flow charts and diagrams for the show to count, but this is the first time that I’ve paid attention to scale, measured rooms and visualized effects, held my arms above my head to figure out the right antler sizes, and put ruler to paper. This is an accurate floor plan. It all fits, it all makes sense.

The show is about 35-40 feet per side–the drawing is accurate but not necessarily specific. The spaces between the figures and scenes will be mostly felt out given the real space, which I can now start searching for more seriously, since I know what I’d like to land.

The doors and transition halls are about four feet wide, and the stag stands 6-7 feet tall (including those silver antlers). It’s designed for groups of four to eight people to experience as a group (with an attendant) with up to three groups moving throughout the show at once. Many of the scenes share a room–for example, as the first scene (in the bottom left room) ends, the second scene begins, and the group merely needs to pivot in place. All of the hallways except for the one at the midpoint (upper right) indicate a journey back into the woods. I described this idea a little more specifically in the explanation of the second scene.

To prevent light and sound leaks, the rooms run alternately–that is, when either of the scenes in room 2 (middle left) is live, the rest of the lights in the rooms on the left half of the space are dark. Since there’s so little buffer space, we do this to prevent light and sound leaks¹. If you’re in the opening room, I don’t want you to hear what’s going on just ahead of you or be distracted by lights coming down that hallway. There’s an added benefit, too: if I can get cues to sync properly, we can double up some of the switches–a single light may turn on in an otherwise empty room if it means it can share a dimmer with a light in an active room. We’ll talk about all of this in much more detail at the end of next week, in our big discussion on lights.

This plan is intentionally unlabeled–I still don’t want to give too much away yet. Even after you’ve seen all the scene previews, there are some touches that won’t be apparent until you’re walking through the real thing. But I want you to see this so you have a better idea of what’s walking around in my mind, and so you can get as excited as I am!

Tomorrow we’ll talk about some logistics for the rest of the project, and on Monday I have a huge essay for you about something that won’t come into play on this show, but will certainly make it into our next one, and is exciting to talk about: designing a Land.