Efren Delgadillo Jr. Solves the Set Puzzle

Efren Delgadillo Jr. had one job—turn the Mission San Juan Capistrano into the legendary 1960s nightclub, La Havana Madrid. A natural, Delgadillo is well-versed in creating captivating sets in the Mission’s courtyard. Last summer, he turned it into the Sun Records studio for Million Dollar Quartet.

The year before that, Delgadillo transformed it into a village for American Mariachiand the Peanuts’ gang’s stomping grounds in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. So creating a nightclub for La HavanaMadrid, Sandra Delgado’s immersive play with music? Delgadillo had this.

But one last element kept tripping him up.

“The last puzzle piece was figuring out if there was a better place for La Havana Madrid,” Delgadillo said, referring to Delgado’s character, the singer/guide with the same name as the nightclub, who leads you in and out of the individual stories of the characters. “I tried out a captain’s chair, a settee, a mini-sofa—all these different things. (Prop supervisor) Michael Mora was willing to try new things, but we found out the easiest solution was best.

“I envisioned her in different places, but it worked out better having her in one place, where she was more connected to the music. It was a bad idea (moving her around), but you won’t get good ideas without bad ideas.”

This illustrates two stories about Delgadillo and the process that goes into designing sets. The first, that details matter. A lot. Literally and figuratively, Delgadillo can’t leave one chair—or would-be chair—unturned. Otherwise, the entire production dynamic falls apart.

The second? Delgadillo’s design mantra.

“Nothing is precious. You have to work hard to filter out the bad ideas, but you have to have bad ideas to get the good ideas out,” he said.

This works rather well for Delgadillo, who filtered out so many bad ideas, he enjoyed the busiest year of his design career. In between heading the set design program at UC Irvine, Delgadillo designed sets for nine plays this season. His personal record is 10, “but I’ve never been the head of scenic design or a graduate program. …”

Delgadillo’s self-described “whirlwind” starts and ends with research. He reads the script, then hits the books for historical research that takes him to collate dozens of images. As he creates, Delgadillo goes to the books or the photos the moment he hits a snag.

“I’m fascinated with research,” he said. “I’m always going back to the research to have validation for what I’m doing, then I share that process with the director and the playwright, or in this case, the performer/playwright.”

For the three-month process that produced the La Havana Madrid set, Delgadillo researched nightclubs of the era. His research led him to put the La Havana Madrid band center of the stage with sunbursts and lights on the backwall that lit up more than the set.

“I showed (Director) Cheryl Lynn Bruce my images and I wanted to see what she reacted to,” Delgadillo said. “Part of a set designer’s job is to create something, then bring the excitement of the director into what’s on stage. Once I saw her get animated with the lights on the backwall, I absolutely knew I needed to put those into the design.”

That Delgadillo knew the dynamics and the restrictions of the Mission’s “container,” as the stage is called, from his previous designs made the job of designing a nightclub in the historic courtyard of a 250-year-old Mission easier. Even with unforeseen puzzles popping up.

And Delgadillo isn’t shy about getting help making the pieces fit. He selects one of his students to assist him on each project, with Betty Xiong getting the call for La Havana Madrid. The student helps with drafting and model-making—with a heavy side order of process-building.

“Not only do they learn my process, but they keep up their technical chops,” Delgadillo said. “They realize what it takes to not only have a good idea, but see it all the way through. It’s an art form in itself. How you communicate your ideas artistically, informationally and graphically. All the things I learned over the years. It’s a mutually beneficial process.”