Over the past week I’ve been lucky enough to talk with members of cast and crew of MilkMilkLemonade by Joshua Conkel (playing through Nov. 13th. Click to buy tickets.)

I spent some time talking with set designer, Jason Simms, who also designed the set for the original 2009 MilkMilkLemonade production.

Simms, originally from Carson City, Nevada, has been designing since the age of 14. He has a Bachelor’s in Set and Costume Design from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. And a Master’s from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN TELLING THE STORY OF MILKMILKLEMONADE?

My job is to tell the story through sense of place. To provide a clear idea of the world we’re inside of. It’s a visual thing. It’s a spacial thing. It’s about understanding the text and bringing a sensibility that supports the ideas and themes of the text, but also complements it in a way that doesn’t diminish it.

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE WAY YOU’RE UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT THIS TIME AROUND?

It’s interesting because there was enough trust with the director (Jose Zayas) to take the ideas of the first set and apply them to the new space. The biggest difference from the first set to this set is that the old set was done in a tiny, tiny basement. Now we’re going to a fairly large space which provides a lot more abilities than we had before. The first set was practically all made out of cardboard. It was literally just a flat, a backdrop in this tiny space. Now the set is a lot more than that.

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE WITH THE MILKMILKLEMONADE SET THIS TIME AROUND?

The biggest challenge was to rethink it in a way to apply to the new space. There wasn’t too much of a challenge in designing the set because there was already a foundation to work with.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT THE NEW MILKMILKLEMONADE SET?

I like the direction that the chicken killing machine is going. We’re approaching it entirely different than the previous design. I’m really happy about the increase of space. It’s a story that can be told with more space, so I’m excited to see how the staging takes place on the new set. Also the amount of support that is present is so much better. When we did the original production it was basically just me and another person trying to make it all happen. Now there’s an entire team, which is good because it means you don’t have to constantly be thinking about, “I don’t know if I really know how to do something,” because there are people around who probably do know how to do it.

THIS SEASON AT APAC WE’RE EXPLORING THE IDEA OF HOME FROM AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE. THE SPRING MUSICAL, THE HUMAN COMEDY LOOKS AT CHARACTERS WHO YEARN TO RETURN HOME. IN MILKMILKLEMONADE THE CHARACTERS WANT TO GET AWAY FROM HOME. WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HOME?

I actually miss Seattle a lot. And I miss my family back in Nevada. I try to get back to those places when I can. So it’s really not so much about that I was escaping from somewhere but it was the fact that there was a place that I could go to make a living doing what I actually love to do.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

I’m just really excited that MilkMilkLemonade is being remounted. Only good things will come from it.

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Be sure to catch APAC’s production of MilkMilkLemonade now through November 13th. Buy tickets for MilkMilkLemonade here.