Wizard of Oz – The Icon of the Sea

Built within the world’s largest ever cruise ship, The Royal Theatre is home to this elaborate staging of the 1939 fantasy classic. Production designer, Andy Walmsley’s ambitious design incorporates all the wizardry from the west end stage.

Project Details

Designer: Andy Walmsley

Client: Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd

Location: Royal Theatre

The set includes the farmhouse, a selection of munchkin houses as well as the castle replete with an automated drawbridge and turrets.

We took the time to design and craft the sculpted elements required within this design. The castle is a combination of steel base structures, timber formwork and carved polystyrene, all melding seamlessly with the mechanical components to bring this piece to life.

With their scenically treated ‘weathered’ timber boards, the farmhouse elements truck around the stage and are cleverly designed in anticipation of their impending destruction and allows Dorothy’s bed to fly over the auditorium using the Q-Motion system.

The Munchkin houses with their curved and distorted profiles were deceptively challenging to produce. The houses split horizontally at each level and incorporate a large amount of pixel LED tape to highlight the curved profiles.

We prebuilt the set and tested all the LED and automation in our workshops in South London before its transportation by road to Finland for the first part of the set installation. The installation of the set, along with the ‘get-in’ posed some unique challenges with the two week installation being completed while the ship was on sea trials.