Realistic...really?

The design parameters for NOTLD weren't complicated. Like I said previously, it is a unit set...

1. One interior representing four different rooms in the farmhouse. 
2. Make the audience feel like they are trapped in the farmhouse with the actors.
3. Staged like a drama more than a musical.

How to draw the audience onstage and make them feel like they are in the farmhouse?
When I design for a drama, I have found that the fastest way to make an audience feel at home is to make the set feel comfortable and identifiable.  While this can be done abstractly, most people very quickly identify with a realist set.  They spend their whole pre-show time studying it for details. Human curiosity for where they are, exploring it with their eyes to try to understand who lives here, what has happened here?

The suspension of disbelief begins when the audience member first sits down, studies the set, reads the program, then studies some more.

Scott described the feeling that he wanted as claustrophobic.  So, I decided to completely wall the playing area in. Visually, the only way in or out was through the front door.  Of course, that isn't really true, but to the audience, that is the way it appears.  It adds to the feeling of being trapped.

Finally, upstairs, the ceiling is partially built and looks like the exposed underside of the roof with low walls and little headroom. Again, cramped and tight...