Cable Street Musical

Role: Set Designer

So Excited to share these production shot from the Cable Street Musical. It’s been such an exciting experience designing the set and working with the brilliant cast, creatives and crew. The entire run sold out before the publicity!

CREATIVES

A New Musical by Tim Gilvin and Alex Kanefsky
Produced by 10 to 4 Productions
Southwark Playhouse Borough

Director - Adam Lenson
Musical Director - Tamara Saringer
Lighting Designer - Sam Waddington
Sound Designer - Charlie Smith
Choreographer - Jevan-Howard Jones
Costume Designer - Lu Herbert
Set Designer - Yoav Segal (me)
Casting Director - Sarah Leung
Lead Producer - Dylan Schlosberg
Co-Producer - Neil Marcus
Production Manager - Mark Hartley / The Prod Office
Dramatrug - Olivia Mace
Puppetry Consultant - Mervyn Millar
Set Builders - First Call Crew

CAST

Max Alexander-Taylor
Debbie Chazen
Danny Colligan
Sha Dessi
Joshua Ginsberg
Jade Johnson
Sarah Leatherbarrow
Aoife Mac Namara
Ethan Pascal Peters
Sophia Ragavelas
Jez Unwin

A really lovely group of extremely talented and totally committed performers.

REVIEWS

'On an artistic level, the bar for original British musicals for 2024 has, as of now, been set very high indeed. Keep trying for returns, you won’t regret it.'

***** WhatsOnStage

'Especially impressive is the sequence of ‘The Battle’, where set, props, direction, choreography, and even a touch of puppetry come together to recreate a massive protest using only eleven people.' 

***** Broadway World

'Dazzling musical portrait of a community against fascism' 

**** The Guardian

'...the versatile cast, intertwining characters and inventive staging... provide a valuable history lesson and ultimately, a welcome message of hope.' 

**** The Sun

'Genuine theatrical swagger' 

**** The Stage

DESIGN PROCESS

‘Such a brilliant and collaborative design process and such painstaking and detailed work from Yoav!’

Adam Lenson, 'Cable Street' Director

The big challenge for this design was how to create an open stage with the sense of a street running through it, that could be barricaded, whilst also having somewhere for a full band. The audience enter through paths on either side, so often in this configuration a tower is built in the centre/back of the stage with the band on. We needed the full stage area though, and the open depth, so a scaffold structure creating platforms on both sides with uninterrupted corridors was the solution.

To work this all out I made a lot of white-card drafts to crack the scaffold form, I then made a model for discussion that got created in 3D, re-rendered by a structural engineer and I then created the model-box in these photos from those structural sound plans. I modelled in 1 to 50 scale for speed and efficiency, as you can really bash out drafts in a small space of time, budget and studio space. 

The build and install were delivered by First Call Crew with production management from Mark Hartley at The Production Office. The Southwark team, Lee and Fergus, were also a great help.

PERSONAL CONNECTION

The musical has a very personal connection to me as my grandfather was one of the organisers of the battle. This is a film in made with him many years ago:

ARTICLES

I was interviewed by the Guardian and The Morning Star about my grandad's story and the musical's set design process:

The Guardian article - LINK

The Morning Star article - LINK

SKETCHBOOK

This is the original sketch I drew after meeting with the (excellent) director Adam Lenson and really getting into his vision for the staging:

Here are a few early sketch images from early thinking:

PROPS

Working with the excellent stage management team (thanks Esther, Zoe and Laura!) I also designed and made many of the key props. The horse puppet was designed and made with advice and support from puppet supremo Mervyn Millar:

The gorgeous poster by the legendary Bob King Creative: