The Glass Menagerie
A memory-play scenic design for The Glass Menagerie at Maples Repertory Theatre, built around an elevated Wingfield apartment, porous thresholds, and visual traces of Tom's narration.
- Year
- 2025
- Company
- Maples Repertory Theatre
- Project
- Drama
- Location
- Macon, MO
Tennessee Williams described The Glass Menagerie as a memory play, and that idea became the foundation of my scenic design. Rather than creating a literal recreation of the Wingfield apartment, I approached the environment as a landscape shaped by Tom's recollections--fragmented, emotional, and imperfect. The design needed to feel familiar enough to ground the story while allowing the world to shift through the lens of memory.
At the center of the production was a large elevated platform that defined the primary playing space of the apartment. Surrounding it, fragments of architecture suggested the apartment, the city beyond, and the blurred edges of remembered experiences. These elements created a visual language that supported the play's movement between reality and recollection.
One of the primary challenges was balancing clarity with uncertainty. The audience needed to recognize the Wingfield home while also sensing that the environment was being filtered through Tom's narration. Nothing was intended to feel entirely fixed or complete.
A memory wall became one of the production's strongest visual motifs. Composed of framed fragments from Tom and Laura's past, the collection functioned less as documentation and more as recollection. The images remained intentionally ambiguous, reinforcing the idea that memory is selective, emotional, and often unreliable. Through this approach, the scenic design sought to transform memory into a physical environment--one that existed somewhere between the past and the present.
Creative team
- By
- Tennessee Williams
- Director
- Kimberly Braun
- Scenic Design
- Brandon PT Davis
- Costume Design
- Jack A. Smith
- Lighting Design
- Vincente Williams
- Sound Design
- Leo Basinger
Links
Million Dollar Quartet
The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove
The Glass Menagerie
Bell, Book, and Candle
Head Over Heels
Romeo & Juliet
Much Ado About Nothing
¡LOTERIA: GAME ON!
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Romero
Urinetown
An Inspector Calls
All's Well That Ends Well
Little Shop of Horrors
Tomás and the Library Lady
The Penelopiad
Company
American Idiot
Parliament Square
An Enemy of the People
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Boeing, Boeing
The Bald Soprano
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
The Man of La Mancha
Dial “M” for Murder
All My Sons
Last Train to Nibroc
Rich Girl