If you’ve seen a YATS production before, you’ll know that what happens on stage is only part of the story. Behind the scenes there’s an incredible amount of work going on to create the world our actors inhabit, and once again our man Ben Bentz has been hard at work turning the artistic team’s ideas into reality. Judging by the contents of his studio, the fabulous set he created for last year’s productions of Oliver! may well get upstaged by his set for The Music Man!
It seems he has more than met the challenge of seven different locations around River City, each one with its own atmosphere and style. He’s been busy designing constructions featuring moving parts and thoughtful accoutrements to transform one location into the next. Of course, were not just talking about buildings and backdrops…
Ben has built a train. Yes. A train.
Of course, we won’t really know how it will all look on stage until the middle of next week (“Tech week”) when Ben and his team assemble the final set, starting Monday. It’s all just so exciting!
Did we mention the train? Yes. There’s a train.