Henry IV Part One

By William Shakespeare

Floor Treatment

Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre

Directed by Robert Quinlan

Scenic Design by Joe Klug

July 2018

For this production of Henry IV Part 1, we faced a couple of unique challenges when it came time to paint the floor. First of all, the treatment had to be dual purpose, as Henry IV ran in repertory with AST’s production of My Fair Lady. Thankfully, both productions were designed by the same scenic designer, so we were able to check in with him and make sure that certain colors and textures were consistent with both designs. Secondly, the audience for Henry IV sat in a runway formation on either side of the stage, with two major scenic pieces on the ends. Therefore, we had to paint all the way up to where the risers began and had to make sure we covered all visible parts of the stage floor- oftentimes when painting a floor I’ve found that you don’t need to actually paint parts that are obscured by masking and scenery, but that wasn’t the case here.

The treatment itself was a large brown stone rectangle surrounded by a greenish-blue brick border. After laying out the shape of the treatment, we began with a beige base for the main part of the floor and a green base for the border. For the man part, we had a variety of browns, oranges, and grays that we slowly built up through different layers of paint. To achieve the diffused, natural stone look we would use sprayers to lay down a mixture of color and water, and then rolled them out using texture rollers. We repeated this process with different colors for the brick. Once we were satisfied with the stone, we sealed the middle part of the stage and lined the brick using different brushes and amounts of pressure to create the aged, organic shape of the bricks. After sealing the border, we left the floor to dry and cure, ready for scenery and lighting to take over the space.

Floor Process