The Lobby
The Lobby will be transformed into The King John, a Battersea-style pub, with British beers and crisps. Audience members can wander through displays of weapons, maps, chessboards, dartboards and playing cards that all hold clues to the story and history of the play.
The Design
It's hard to look at this red-haired Monarch and not see the suicide king in a deck of cards. He's no King of Hearts, and not diamonds either, but red, the color of conflict, is John's Color.
The play starts in a contemporary London Pub, as two American tourists drop in for a pint. They ask the publican about King John and the regulars offer what they know about this ancient, reviled monarch. "It was the time of Robin Hood. "And Richard the Lion-hearted." "The Crusades." The plague." He was a notorious bastard!" "You can't call Him a bastard!" "I just did." "The Bastard was Philip, his nephew..." then the play begins. The "locals" take on some of the props from the set and begin Act I, where John and his mother, Eleanor, encounter Philip and invite him into the Royal Plantagenet family.
The Chessboard
The two most dynamic characters in the Play are Eleanor and Constance, the Queens who are always angling for their whimpering sons. The Lobby will feature a chessboard, Queen pieces, and Red Face cards with no suit: hearts or diamonds.
