The FML gala stage.

The finished set with show lighting.

The women and the presidential box.

The finished set with pre-show lighting.

The most ambitious aspect of the set was the hand-painted 8 foot wide Presidential Seal at the center of the set. The addition of the seal was the only major change to the set after the creation of my initial model because we needed a piece that could unify all three distinct spaces in the set and further establish that we were in the White House. The official presidential seal changes every presidency, so the one we have one stage is a hybrid of different terms with no one leading influence. To create the seal, we projected and then traced a template onto two pieces of masonite that would align in the center. I selected all 15 colors used on the seal and marked each section of the template with its corresponding color in a paint-by-number system. The painting was largely done by me and a team of 4 scenic painters over the course of a month. When the seal was placed onstage, we had to make very few edits before sealing it to protect the paint from the action of the show. The photo on the left was taken at the end of the show’s run and shows how well the piece held up.

The above draftings are the finalized ground plan and elevations. Drafted by me in AutoCAD.

POTUS was also challenging because the characters spend the show rapidly going from room to room within the White House but because of the amount of physical comedy, they needed a largely open space with very few potential obstacles. We decided early on that the show would be best served with a large number of doors and I ended up placing the walls based on where the best spots for doors would be. We decided individual rooms within the White House would be established with furniture and lighting and the image on the right is an early idea for furniture placement to create an office, hallway, and living room. We stuck with those three locations throughout the process, but the furniture in the finished set is slightly different.

Most of my inspiration for the look of the White House came from Obama’s first term because they made very few modifications to the interior design and the look of the White House was very classic, which was important to help establish that the president in this show could be any president throughout history. There was also an abundance of documentation on this era and I largely pulled references from an interactive map of the White House that was created during his first term and had multiple photos from different angles of every room in the White House.