Playwrights in the Newsroom

About the Design

A documentary theatre piece built from interviews with reporters at the Dallas Morning News and journalism students at SMU, staged in the round so the audience sat inside the newsroom rather than across from it. The central playing space stayed almost bare — a polished floor, a single suspended wall of mullioned windows and a compact set of white steps — letting the surrounding ring of audience chairs read as the room itself.

Concept & Approach

The design problem was sightlines and focus in a four-sided configuration. A hovering window unit gave the piece a single architectural anchor that read from every seat, while the step unit created level changes for the actors to claim height and direct address. The plan was drafted around a tiered seating bank — risers stepped at +8″ and +16″ — wrapping the open floor, with the patrons’ lounge folded into the same footprint.

Drafting & Renderings

3D concept rendering — the window wall and step unit in the round, audience banked on both sides — Concept rendering — the room in the round

Ground plan — seating banks and pipe grid for the in-the-round configuration — Ground plan — seating & pipe grid

Ground plan with the patrons' lounge — risers at +8 inches and +16 inches around the open floor — Ground plan — with patrons’ lounge

Initial ground plan study — early seating layout and riser heights — Initial ground plan study

In Performance

Production — a downstage exchange in front of the step unit, audience visible on three sides — The company at work — staged among the audience

Production — an actor at the window wall lit in cold blue, panes glowing amber behind — At the window wall

Production — the suspended window unit lit with warm amber panes against the dark surround — The suspended window wall

Production — an actor delivering downstage with the company banked behind on the steps — Direct address in the round

Production — actors seated on stools and the step unit in a scene caught in window-pattern light — The step unit — level changes & height