Building the Jericho Wall

"The Cord of Courage" has presented unique challenges in terms of set design. There's the baptistery we had to put a floor over for Rahab's house, and an 8-panel foam backdrop painted to look like a desert, painted by 2 talented ladies from Fountain of Grace and 3 cast girls. I am so blessed by the people who have given so much time to make this a reality!

The most challenging set design was the Jericho wall. Unlike an ordinary wall, this one has to fall - preferably as the audience watched. Kevin Morton undertook the challenge of coming up with a design, using garden mesh as a base and duck tapping (and later hot gluing, when the tape kept releasing) foam pieces painted to look like stones to the mesh. A multitude of hours by many volunteers has gone into building the wall, and it turned out pretty amazing.

The picture was taken before the stones were reinforced with hot glue, so there's a few missing where the tape released. ;)

Now, to see if it will actually fall... It's rigged up so that it should when we untie the clothesline at the top, but we didn't get to practice it at the first dress rehearsal, due to those untying it not hearing the cue - the rumbling sound effect was drowned out by the Israelites' shout. We'll have to work out the timing. We're all hoping that when it does fall, it won't be damaged too much, since it has to be set up and then fall for three consecutive presentations!

Wednesday Update: Half of the wall fell last night, and it looked really neat as it crumbled! The other side stayed up, because some push pins used while building it were accidentally never removed. So, it's looking good - and we're hoping it will all fall at tomorrow night's dress rehearsal!

Picture credit: Rachael Morton and Samantha Brooks