Lucky Stiff
Creative Cube, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, September 2014
Director: Caleb Goh
Set Designer: Aaron Yap
Lighting Designer: Gabriel Chan
Costume Designer: Aaron Yap
Produced by BA(Hons) Musical Theatre programme, LASALLE College of the Arts
Lucky Stiff is a classic example of a modern farce musical, and thus the set places a strong emphasis on block, bold colours. Staged in a very small black box theatre with limited budget, the stylised set is minimalist, consisting of 3 mobile panels and modular platforms designed with a casino theme to go with the idea of life being a gamble. The 3 mobile panels are designed to look like poker cards, and modular platforms to look like gaming plaques. During the pre-Monte Carlo scenes, the cards and the gaming plaques are not shown, to represent the bleak, dull world of the characters in their daily lives, and once the scene gradually moves into Monte Carlo, the cards and gaming plaques starts to reveal their faces, a suggestion that the “gamble” is about to begin.
In terms of costuming, the various characters are donned in bright block colours to make them larger than life, although those that appear in pre-Monte Carlo scenes are less colourful, so as to give a contrast between the dreary East Grinstead/ Atlantic City and the glittery Monte Carlo.