The Cherry Orchard was the 75th anniversary gala production for The Questors. As this auditorium was one of the first purpose-built theatre spaces in Britain that could provide flexible stage forms, it was only fitting that this feature should be used for this show. The director stated at an early stage that he wanted to produce the play in the round with the cherry orchard surrounding the audience so my first challenge was to design a suitable seating configuration for the fourth side of the auditorium, allowing for audience sight lines and the need for an extra vomitory ('vom') entrance. Intricate wooden floors were a common feature of grand Russian houses and the audience's prominent view of the stage gave me the opportunity to design and paint one that was suitably intricate.

Cutting the auditorium capacity down to four rows allowed me to site doorways down the voms so that the cast appeared to be going somewhere rather than just disappearing into the blackness. I encircled the audience with black gauze to give a sense of distance from the canvas tree drops hung round the auditorium. Each tree was lit with four lamps to achieve a variety of effects such as a leaf gobo and daylight fading into night.