Lizzie and Cadi on Designing ‘Black Stuff’

For their first job after graduating this summer, designers Cadi Lane and Lizzie French have been working with Volcano Theatre. The pair have designed Black Stuff – a site specific performance about coal, art and politics, which takes audiences on a grimy, subterranean journey through a new bunker theatre in a disused building in Swansea city centre.

Here, they talk about the creative process of designing their first professional show.

“Working on Black Stuff has been a very different process compared to working on college shows, but the skills we learnt at college were definitely useful. The show is devised, meaning the design had to remain fairly flexible. Things were constantly changing and developing, which made the process creative and exciting.

“It was clear from the day we first entered the space that it was going to be nothing like designing for a typical theatre. There’s none of the safety of knowing where the audience is going to be, as they can go anywhere. Although we had a huge amount of freedom, it sometimes meant it was hard to narrow down and finalise some ideas. It’s been a challenging, but incredibly exciting space to work in. We didn’t want to decorate or add unnecessary things to the space just for the sake of it, as the space already had so much natural character.

“We set out with the vision of creating a space that would take certain elements of a coal mine but create something new and contemporary, that made various references to the mines, using materials like coal, rope, wood etc. We wanted to create a space that took the audience out of their comfort zone, but wasn’t a literal representation of anything. We did shift around over 3 tons of coal though – that definitely left the bathroom floor with a few coaly footprints!”

Cadi and Lizzie aren’t the only RWCMD graduates involved in the show. Actors Robin Willingham and Neal McWilliams appear in the show, lighting designer is 2014 graduate Ben Stimpson, plus stage manager Fiona McCulloch and production manager John Kirk are also former students.