Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/820551
P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 7 57 glass block walls to serve as room dividers, self-stick vinyl parquet squares that protect the shampoo room floor, sparkly cottage cheese plaster work on the walls of the waxing room upstairs—all those details from Jackie's business made it into the final set. One detail we could not import to the South were those great row house- lined streets. Row houses do not exist in Atlanta (and believe me, we looked). Atlanta neighborhoods, even very poor ones, seem to scatter their houses far apart with rambling yards, lush trees and kudzu everywhere. Miraculously, the location scouts found the one street in all of Atlanta with four nearly-identical old houses built circa 1908, each one planted about five feet from its neighbor. One catch: no second floors. But with the addition of some well-aged scenic work and some great set dressing (and the promise that the second-floor exteriors could be added using visual effects if necessary), we had the show's hero Salon Street. "Can the musical form accommodate a plot with murder, underage rape, violence against black youth and women, substance addiction, and injustice in the criminal system, and still tell a story where music and dance can blast off the screen and thrill an audience the old- fashioned way—through the heart?" How scary to plan permanent sets for a series when no one is sure where the plot will go. Taking a leap of faith, I looked at the one-story salon set that had been built for the pilot and soon created an entire neighborhood onstage to surround it for the series. When complete, the warehouse/ soundstage would be filled with three full-size two-story house exteriors side by side to provide a street onstage with parked cars, three front porches marching in a row, two entire downstairs interiors, one full upstairs interior, three connected backyards with a driveable service alley, two upstairs roof- decks, one full garage and two on-camera alleyways between the houses. Under the heading, Who Knows What Sets We'll Need, Funny Story #1: At the outset, we all believed the girls would need a neighborhood hangout, a diner/bar that served breakfast all day and liquor all night, with an open