Part 1: Creating the Set for ‘Matilda’
Scenic Designer Scott Davis talks about the very beginnings of designing the set for ‘Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical!’
Scott Davis is an award-winning regional and international designer whose breadth of work includes theatrical productions, international tours, illustration, and commercial design. His theatrical design work ranges from intimate, immersive engagements to large-scale productions, including the development of several new musicals. His first work with Children’s Theatre Company included the wow-factor scenic design for Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical. Here he talks about the first steps for designing another awe-inspiring set for our stage.
CTC: How do you begin your process for designing a set?
Scott Davis: Research is always my first step, especially with a show like Matilda, which is based on a book, so I go to that primary source for inspiration. The original illustrations were by Quentin Blake, so he became a huge jumping off point stylistically, as well. But I like to cast a wide net in terms of inspirational visuals to get my mind thinking about the world of the show.
CTC: What would you say your style of design is?
SD: I believe that the key to successful design is that the style of any given show is derived from the text or the concept. I try to have a divide between my personal art and my design work. The style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical was taken from the work of Jeff Kinney [the book author]. It will inherently be my work because it’s all sent through the conduit of my process, but the style of a design is very much a response to the source material.
CTC: What did you learn from CTC’s production team after the first design meeting?
SD: The first meeting is where we take all the disparate ideas and start to filter those into what the concept for our show will be. I always find it inspirational to listen to how a director talks about a show, not just what they say, but how they talk about it.
CTC: What are some of the main reasons a set design could change? Do you anticipate your design changing?
SD: The largest change that happens in a design is usually during the budgeting process. The initial design I create is a collection of all of our ideas. The budgeting process usually gives us the chance to hone in the ideas and land on the essentials of storytelling. That gives us a show that is streamlined and cohesive.
CTC: You designed the set for Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical at CTC, so you know this theatrical space. In which ways are the mechanics of this set different than Wimpy Kid?
SD: Although the structures of these musicals are not dissimilar, the attacks on the two shows were very different. Diary was all about being inside the drawings of a journal. All the choices based on how things move were built around that idea. For Matilda, we leaned into the idea of books, discovery, and individual perspective. So that became the rubric we based design decisions around for this world.
CTC: For any kids reading this who think this sounds like a cool career, when did you get inspired to do this, and how did you make your dream a reality?
SD: I went to school to study studio art (painting and steel sculpture). There, I started working with a designer as an assistant building scale models. I found the process of making art in a collaborative scenario so satisfying; that we as a collective can create something so much better and cooler than any one of us could have created on our own.
Stay tuned for part 2 in this series on creating the set for Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical!
