The Whitwell Players production of Wind in the Willows on 19-21 September, 2025 was held in All Saints’ Church, St. Paul’s Walden Bury.
The venue presented many challenges to the technical crew, including setting up lighting, sound, and stage equipment in a Norman stone building. Another challenge was to recreate the pastoral setting within a religious edifice. With a screen behind the rood screen and a projector in the chancel, we were able to project a digital set behind the actors, transporting audience out of the church and into the landscape of the story.
Artwork for the digital set was inspired by E.H. Shepard’s original illustrations for the book. These playful sketches with dark lines and watercolor washes hold a special significance to the British people, much like the story itself, and represent a nostalgia for the playful simplicity of a pre-war era.
I was keen to gently complement the action on stage, never drawing focus from the actors, but also to create visual interest and variety. So I used a range of modern and traditional approaches to animate the imagery, from frame-by-frame techniques to AI-assisted workflows.
The more I got into the design, the more the story spoke to me, and it caused me to view my own surroundings in a new way. I grew up on the US-Mexico border in the Sonoran Desert, with only two seasons: hot and hotter. Yet all four seasons and their cycling are central this play.
So, I consider the digital set my love letter to the English countryside in all of her seasons. I hope you enjoy it.