PlayMakers set designer takes her final bow

Wooden chairs, vintage telephones, disassembled kitchenware.

The set for PlayMakers’ latest production, “Death of a Salesman,” represents the culmination of the lead character’s life. For designer Jan Chambers, it marks the end of an 18-year run.

Chambers will retire when the production ends Feb. 16. As she prepares for her final bow after 45 shows at PlayMakers, the set designer has nothing but fondness for the theater company she has called home for nearly two decades.

“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” Chambers said. “I know it sounds cliché, but this really has been such a supportive family. Under the artistic direction of Joe Haj and then Vivienne Benesch, this company has weathered a lot from the pandemic to the changing political climate.”

Fittingly, Chambers’ first experience with the theater company was seeing a 1995 production of “Death of a Salesman.” Chambers calls it a “beautiful and full circle” moment to end her journey with PlayMakers with the same play.

And her past connections to PlayMakers don’t stop there.

“PlayMakers is located in the Paul Green Theatre, which is named after the famous North Carolina playwright,” Chambers said. “And my grandmother once went on a double date with Paul Green.”

Chambers’ theater journey didn’t begin in Chapel Hill. She acted on stage in high school, then earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art at the University of Tennessee, followed by a master’s degree in theater design from the University of Illinois.

Chambers designed and taught at several universities before becoming a professor at Carolina’s dramatic art department in the College of Arts and Sciences and resident set designer in 2007. Her first show was “When the Bulbul Stopped Singing,” and the stage manager was Sarah Smiley — a collaborator who also worked with her on “Death of a Salesman.”

“On the first day of rehearsals on that first show, Sarah told me that there was coffee ready if I wanted some,” Chambers said. “I went over there, and not only were there cups, there was already a cup with my name on it. It was such a small thing, but it was unlike any welcome I ever had.”

During her time at PlayMakers, Chambers has designed sets for all types of plays. She received accolades from Independent Weekly for her costume and scenic design for the 2013 performance “Metamorphoses,” which Chambers co-designed with McKay Coble, her colleague and mentor at Carolina. The show forced Chambers to take some nontraditional approaches to set design.

“That show required a pool of water in the middle of the stage,” Chambers said. “We had approximately five tons of water in a gigantic pool for each performance. It was amazing.”

For her final show with PlayMakers, Chambers created a multilevel set that doubles as the home of the main character and other locales required by the text. Chambers says the design acknowledges the original production by creating a sculptural installation comprised of architectural and household objects. Everything is painted black, making the set disappear and focusing attention on the conversations of the characters. The installation approach also offered a way to differentiate it from other productions of “Death of a Salesman.”

The show also uses technologies such as projection-mapping, which allows the crew to project images onto a billboard prop sitting in the theater’s rafters. It’s an example of Chambers’ desire to evolve her techniques by collaborating with people at the forefront of new technologies.

That sense of collaboration will be what Chambers misses most when she leaves PlayMakers.

“At PlayMakers you create something that is way more than the sum of its parts,” Chambers said. “There’s nothing else like it.”