Day 87 - Theatre designer Becky Minto on The 306: Day

Designer - and Perth local - Becky Minto remembers the second part of the extraordinary 306 Trilogy co-written by playwright Oliver Emanuel and composer Gareth Williams, which the National Theatre of Scotland and Perth Theatre brought to life over three consecutive years as part of 14-18Now.

The 306: Day the second part of The 306 Trilogy was a new piece of

music theatre about staying silent and speaking out, fighting for peace

and giving into violence. It told the forgotten story of three women in

wartime and their struggle to survive in a world that won’t listen.

The 306: Day was an intimate and immersive theatrical experience

originally staged within the Station Hotel in Perth. Due to the nature of

the trilogy of the piece and as the designer for The 306: Dawn it felt

important that elements from the barn installation at Dalcrue Farm

became part of the set design for the 2nd part of the trilogy. The original

duckboards were transformed into working tables for the women in the

factory as well as a raised level. Wooden boxes were created from any

wood that was left over. The set unlike 306: Dawn that was installed into

one epic space had to be more flexible for touring into varying sizes of

venues and communities across Scotland. The women were dressed in

munition factory worker overalls, made specifically for them. As an

audience member you were sat up close to hear first-hand accounts

from those ordinary women whose extraordinary fight was to be heard

above the clamour of World War 1.

The 306: Day credit Marilyn Kingwill

BECKY MINTO

Becky has designed over 100 productions varying in scale for companies

including National Theatre Scotland, The Royal Lyceum, Grid Iron, Perth

Rep, Visible Fictions, Vanishing Point, Scottish Dance Theatre, Lung Ha,

All Or Nothing, 7:84, The Byre, The Citizen’s Theatre, Upswing Aerial

Theatre Company, Fire Exit, Walk The Plank, Dundee Rep and Pitlochry

Festival Theatre. On a larger scale Becky was Associate Designer for the

Opening and Closing Ceremonies for Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth

Games; Land of Giants Belfast/London 2012 Festival and This Side The

Other Side, Turku’s Capital of Culture Opening Ceremony in 2011.

She was awarded the Silver medal for Space Design forThe 306:Dawn NTS

at the World Stage Design exhibition in Taipei 2017. Out Of This World for VTOL

co-designed with Mark Murphy for was selected for Staging Places UK

Design exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial 2019 and is currently at The

V&A, London until March 2020. Ignition NTS and Iron-Oxide’s White Gold

were selected for Make Believe/ UK Design for Performance exhibition

Prague Quadrennial and The V&A, London 2015. She has exhibited for the

Society of British Theatre Designers in 2011 and 2007.