ofthe "Amadeus" set.

(hammer tapping) Show's over.

(board clatters) (board thudding) - So it feels like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's going."

(board clattering and thudding) What I wish people really understood when they're sitting in their seats and watching a performance is everything that led up to that performance.

(elegant music) (tool chattering) - Early on when we started talking about what plays we were gonna do for the season, I knew that "Amadeus" was in it, and it's a favorite of mine.

This is a perfect play.

It's a perfect play for The Gamm.

- Recluse.

- What horrors have you heard?

- [Performers] Tell us, tell us.

Tell us at once.

What does he cry?

- [Performer] What does he cry?

- [Performers] What does he cry?

- Mozart!

- In general, set design is the stage and all of the fixings that come with that.

- Set designer will come in, and they limit the space and therefore expand that space for you, right?

They kind of create the environment in which the story can kind of unfold.

- I was constantly turned to the ceilings of the palace, in particular the palace chapel, which has this most gorgeous ceiling right here.

And then it's lit up.

And it felt like, "Well, why don't we put that in The Gamm?"

- I think set design plays a huge role in terms of audience draw for buying tickets and coming to see a production.

The Gamm Theatre has been around for 40 years.

This show at this stage looks to be pacing ahead of any show that The Gamm has ever produced in the past.

- I present to you for one performance only my last composition entitled "The Death of Mozart, or, "Did I Do It?"

- I start by reading the script many, many times, and then I do in fact go from my brain to this.

(laughs) And I'm lucky enough to be designing for a space that's kind of my home because The Gamm Theatre is my home.

I immediately look to architecture.

My background is in architecture, and so those tend to be my reference points.

- Creating that foment of Vienna, that kind of, and the richness of what Jess is doing in terms of the colors and the architecture of the set.

Remember, this play is called "Amadeus," which means lover of God.

And ultimately the play is about the composer Salieri commits a war against God on the body of Mozart.

The focus is in the play where he talks directly to the audience, and he looks up, and he talks to his God.

- What is the need in the sound?

Is it your need?

Can it be yours?

- Then to how do we create that, well, I just knew we're gonna have to have some sort of ceiling because everybody has to feel that sense of looking up.

This is a somewhat three-dimensional way of reflecting what's in my brain.

I am also drawing it using my computer.

With the computer, I am absolutely to the inch or to the half inch or quarter inch, even, saying, this is exactly where this is going to be.

Eventually, it results into a sketch that I can then make a model from.

(elegant classical music) (spray can hissing) This is what people are gonna walk on, and this is what people are gonna see.

I mean, people are gonna walk into The Gamm as an audience member, and I'm saying to them, "You need to believe that this is the 1790s in Vienna," and they do.

(upbeat orchestral music) (saw buzzing) (nail gun popping) We're looking at seven days for getting folks on the stage itself with another seven days after that for finish work.

(elegant classical music) (drill whirring) - So let's build more.

- [Jessica] Tomorrow we'll start building the template for the large ceiling.

So that's what Michael and I will work on this afternoon.

- Oh God, I'm tired.

A lot of people don't even understand that there's so many people behind the scenes doing what they do.

You know, they think of the people that they see on stage, but, of course, there's a huge support staff.

- A show like "Amadeus" ranges upwards of $200,000 to produce because of the number of bodies involved in standing up the show, the music involved, the instrument involved.

- We had to decide kind of early on, how are we gonna handle the music?

We knew that we could accomplish the things that we wanted to accomplish if we had the right person.

(performers singing) Judith Stillman is brilliant, and when we were able to bring her on to the process and say, "Okay, she's going to play through every show.

We need a piano," that's when we were like, "Okay, now we have to have a piano."

(wheels clattering) The piano came today.

So we will learn a lot today when Judy gets to sit down and play a few pieces on there.

(classical piano music) - When the proverbial curtain rises, we want to captivate the audience at once with seeing the evocative set and hearing the genius of Mozart.

- [Jason] So the music becomes part...

It's so important and integral to this play, it becomes part of the overall design.

(audience applauding) (tool humming) (tool clicking) - There is a, I don't know what it is, 40, 42-foot ceiling piece that has to be built and hoisted and hang in the air, and that's probably the biggest challenge.

- Whoa.

(piece thudding) (chorus singing) - Yeah, that ceiling is huge.

That ceiling took us two days to get up and safe to occupy under.

Having it maintain its own structural integrity was a lesson.

(laughs) (rousing classical music) Tonight is a big night.

It is the first rehearsal that we invite an audience in.

So this is when we have to release it to the public.

- So the last element that finishes it all off, right, is the audience because you have worked in that space, and they've come to understand that imagined space as this reality we create in their heads.

- Signori, let me be a composer.

- It really has managed to manifest as a very similar experience from looking at the little model to walking into the space.

And I think the ceiling unit is the reason why.

All the work and all of the stuff that has come along, including the solving the problems, that is fulfilling.

And then most importantly, it really serves the play.

The actors are beautifully presented.

The piano is incredibly well integrated.

I think it's a success.

(laughs) I hope it's a success.

(audience applauding) - [Announcer] Thanks for watching,