Some of the best stage shows leave the audience feeling mesmerised and in awe of their dazzling sets and elaborate costumes, wondering 'How on earth did they do that?!'
Stage and costume designers have to use both their imaginative and practical minds in order to bring to life the impossible, for shows that need to look impeccable for months or even years.
As a set and costume designer myself, I know it is never an easy process and often includes a lot of trial and error.
From creating a living and breathing painting to a soaring curtain of Swarovski crystal, and a magic wand-sized flamethrower, some of the biggest shows in Australia are taking their audience's imaginations for a spin — which is what we are all hankering for as live performance returns after almost two years of rolling COVID-19 lockdowns.
Now that big productions have returned to the stages of our biggest cities, here is a look at how some of the most spectacular sets, costumes and props of these shows were designed and realised.
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child's pencil-sized flamethrower
One of the greatest challenges of putting the Harry Potter world on stage is creating magic that feels convincingly real for the audience.
The show's special effects team, led by British illusionist Jamie Harrison, came up with a series of never-before-seen live tricks, making these magical elements one of highlights of the Olivier Award-winning show.
"I can do things as a theatrical illusion designer that a magician could never do," Harrison told the San Francisco Chronicle.
One of these seemingly impossible illusions is the casting of spells with magic wands.
After many prototypes, Harrison and his team developed a pencil-sized flamethrower that shoots out a fire across the room — making it appear as though a spell is being cast.
A trick like this depends on a lot of crew training and safety awareness.
Before each performance, a crew member loads the flamethrower with flash paper and flash cotton, which light and burn very quickly so there isn't the danger of harming the actors on stage. Still, the actors must hold their 'wands' as far away from their bodies as possible and are very careful about where they aim.
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child runs until July 24 at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne.
Come from Away's real growing trees
How could a tree trunk sprout new leaves on a theatre stage? Because the trees in American designer Beowulf Boritt's original 2017 Broadway stage design for Come from Away were real.
Although it felt like an impossible task, Boritt knew he wanted them to be real from the start of his design process.
"Even the very best artificially made trees are never quite as good as the real thing," he tells ABC Arts. "It's all the lumps and twists and turns and scars … the strangeness and inconsistencies of these things found in nature that make things feel real and honest."
The tricky part was finding the right trees, harvesting them and getting them to set. For this, the creative team travelled to the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York to find ones that felt right for the show.
Plus, real trees are incredibly heavy — the largest weighing over 2,700 kilograms — and extremely difficult to manoeuvre.
The harvested trees continued to 'grow' on the Broadway stage because they stored a lot of moisture, and there was enough light from the lighting grid to sustain them.
"It was a little sad that the trees didn't know we had cut them down," says Boritt. "But it was also magical to see them on the stage and actually growing."
For the touring set (including the one here in Australia) Boritt and his team recreated these real trees, for transport and feasibility reasons, using steel, styrofoam and rubber — making them exact replicas down to every nook and cranny.
Come from Away runs until January 28 at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney; and from February 3-27 at Canberra Theatre Centre.
Frozen's Ice Palace includes 53,000 Swarovski crystals
The sets of the stage version of the Disney musical Frozen take the audience into a world of sparkling icy wonder.
British scenic and costume designer Christopher Oram was inspired by the diverse geography, mythology and cultural traditions of Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Oram and his team took a research trip to Norway while they were developing the show.
As he told Architectural Digest: "That was the key to unlocking the natural world — being in the mountains and the fjords was an amazing, eye-opening experience. You understand the scale of nature around you in a way that I don't think you do when you're in a city."
The awe-inspiring stage design includes 53,000 Swarovski crystals which make up Elsa's ice palace, 65 tonnes of scenery — 45 tonnes of which is flying scenery (scenery which is lowered and raised in and out of sight) — and 75 million individual video pixels used from floor to ceiling.
As for what the beloved characters wear, there are over 440 handmade costumes in the show (including Elsa's ice dress which has over 18,000 beads and Swarovski crystals) and 120 pairs of custom-made shoes which were all remade in Sydney. The fabrics and trims were sourced from 14 different countries around the world.
Frozen the Musical runs until January 23 at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne; and from February 10-April 17 at QPAC, Brisbane.
Transforming the costumes and set of Moulin Rouge! into a living Toulouse-Lautrec artwork
For Moulin Rouge!, British American costume designer Catherine Zuber (who won a 2020 Tony Award for her work on the musical) took inspiration from everywhere: art, fashion and culture, both past and present.
"I've always really enjoyed merging different periods," Zuber tells ABC Arts. "When designing I always love to look at contemporary research as well as that of the past. It makes [the costumes] more fun, more creative and more accessible to the audience."
There's a moment in Moulin Rouge! the Musical where the scenery and costumes transform into a living, breathing artwork inspired by French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Zuber describes it as "a moment of poetic stillness in our story".
"It was great to research all of the amazing paintings and illustrations done by Toulouse-Lautrec, which were so inspiring and so beautiful," says Zuber.
Zuber and the show's scenic designer Derek McLane chose Toulouse-Lautrec artworks that they felt the audience would recognise: like a performer wearing a hat adorned with a vibrant flower (a reference to Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric") and a slithering snake-wrapped dress (reminiscent of his 1899 painting of cancan dancer Jane Avril).
"The team handpainted brushstrokes onto the costumes — based on the Toulouse-Lautrec illustrations — which were made of natural fabrics that would take paint well," explains Zuber.
"When you look at the original paintings you'll see a skirt, or a corset, or a frock coat and they are bold and graphic and beautiful … We tried to recreate that in the costumes."
The performer's hairdos also looked the part: "We created these rubber wigs and then painted them … so even the hair could look painted and sculptural."
Moulin Rouge! the Musical runs until April 29 at Regent Theatre, Melbourne; and from May at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney.
