I did not want The Man of La Mancha to live in a picturesque Spain. At Lake Dillon Theatre Company, the director and I talked early about the story existing inside a warehouse, a space where actors could assemble the world in front of us.

Brick walls, exposed piping, and a steel stair structure grounded the room in an honest industrial vocabulary. A circular pattern cut into the floor created a playing arena that felt part ritual space and part proving ground.

The windmill, traced in industrial pipe, was never meant to feel literal. It worked more like an idea projected onto the room, allowing imagination and harsh reality to occupy the same space as the performers built the story in real time.