By Chris Baker -- The Cannon Beach Gazette

   In one of Sue Diehl’s first productions as stage designer for Coaster Theater 22 years ago, she was responsible for putting together the lighting for a Seattle-based dance company’s show.  The only problem was she had no prior experience in stage lighting and the dance company was promised a skilled lighting technician. So, she went to the local library and read up on lighting theory.
   Days later, the dance show went off without a hitch.
   “I didn’t really know what I was doing in those days. We didn’t have the computer lighting boards then, so it was challenging,” said Diehl. “But I’ve always liked challenges.”

   She was commended for her job with the lighting and the set design after the performance and soon after, her brother Steven Diehl, former Coaster theater manager, hired her.
   “He decided to pay me,” mused Sue, noting her volunteer work for several shows prior.     Sue, the woman behind most of the set designs at Coaster Theater for two decades, resigned from her position on May 2 in the wake of several changes at the theater, she said.
   “Things have changed and I’m ready for a change,” said Diehl, who started as a volunteer in May of 1980. “At my age I’m ready for some easier living.”

   Over the years, Sue has designed so many sets, she cannot even begin to count them off the top of her head.    “I’d have to look back in my records,” she explained. 
   However, she does have fond memories about particular productions, under particular directors. The annual Christmas sets were always fun, she said. But, it was the challenging sets that were often the most enjoyable.
   “We had to do a play called ‘Into the Woods’,” said Sue. “It was a musical and they always represent the biggest challenges.”
   Depending on the production, Sue usually had one to three weeks to put together a set. She often utilized the help of the director, painters, carpenters and others to make her sets a reality. While her brother often took care of purchasing furniture and other large items for the stages, Sue had her fair share of quests for the right props. One of the hardest things she ever had to
search for was an antique wheelchair for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

    “We went to Portland and all over the place looking for one. We ended up finding it in a hospital supply store in Astoria,” she said. “It was a wicker wheel chair.”
   She also had to design some other interesting props over the years, like a doghouse for “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.”
   “I’ve had to make trap-door beds. I’ve had people pop out of cabinets,” she added.
   Over the years, directors often gave her the input on what they wanted for the productions. She fondly recalled working with Jerry Railton, a director who oversaw productions of the Christmas plays and the “Music Man,” to name a few.
   “He’s easy going,” she said, noting that he often worked beside her and offered continuous input. “A lot of directors just tell you want they want and walk off.”
   In the design stages, most of Sue’s sets started with the director’s vision and a thorough scouring of the script. 

   “I usually start with a script, see the design and down scale it for our stage,” said Sue. She traveled to Ashland and other thespian hotbeds to gain set design ideas over the years as well.
   “I had to arrange people to do all the different things that go into building a set.”
   “It was an everything kind of job,” she added. “I built sets in one to two weeks and all the other stuff was maintenance.”  For Sue, opening nights represented an anxiety. 
   She recognizes that “if anything is going to go wrong, it’s going to happen on opening night.”
   “I don’t like to be there on opening nights,” said Sue, noting she usually didn’t show up for a production until after the first week.
   However, Sue did have to stick around during some opening nights to make last minute changes or other alterations to her sets prior to the rise of the curtain. She said that in some occasions, she had to instruct actors not to touch certain portions of the set because the plaint was still wet.

   In the case of “The King and I”, she actually fixed the play’s main curtains while the audience waited for the production to start. However, she loves the last minute “challenges.” 
   “It all depends on the time they gave me to build a set, but it never really got all that frantic,” she explained. “It’s like trying to put together a puzzle faster than the guy next to you.”
   “It’s challenging and exciting.”
   While her days as a full-time set designer are over, Sue’s happy to start a new career in the home cleaning business. She’s always been one for new challenges.

© 2002 Cannon Beach Gazette