Initial lighting ideas and details

As flats are assembled and doors get their knobs installed, my thoughts turn to lighting and the little details.

This realistic set needs to have the right lighting to get the audience to buy into what is going on.  I want it to be dark and shadowy.  It isn't a musical comedy...no need for the bright colors and lots of changes. Broken light, patterns and sharp angles seem in order.  I think that I will use blues, purples, a little magenta, with 51 Surprise pink as my primary flesh tones.

Moonlight coming in thru the window and front door.  Maybe some coming from above the upstairs ceiling, catching the edges of the roof boards and creating streaks down the wall.

There are incandescent lights in the farmhouse...hotspots of straw in the areas where the lamps would be casting their glow.

We have a window with curtains on it. The window is a single hung and the bottom sash opens.  Maybe I should open the show with the sash up and a small fan outside, causing the curtains to move as if by a breeze coming in.  With moonlight shining in and maybe a window gobo cast across the floor, the set has a bit of kinetics before the show. A little movement adds to the believe-ability.

The bare-bulb porcelain socket light fixture in the cellar needs to light...maybe a faint glow. with some kind of sharp, broken pattern cast across the broken plaster wall with foundation stone exposed.

What to do upstairs? There should be some kind of light up there...a bare bulb with a pull string? Hmmm... got to let that mull a little bit. It IS an old farmhouse.