In the play Intimate Apparel the character George Armstrong is a Barbarian Immigrant who is in Panama in the Canal. We only get glimpses in his letters of the Canal in his letters to Esther. In  my hope to find  some basic idea on how this character might be thinking or feeling i decided to look at where he lived first. To start myself off I wanted to look at a quick history of the Panama Canal, the following is from wikipedia:

Intimate Apparel takes places in several locations but its always in the same room: The Bedroom.  At first this bugged me but then i realized that as a Lighting Designer this gives me lots of room to experiment. Instead of looking at this situation like "Everything take places in one type of room" I am thinking a more open approach "How many ways can i make this one bedroom look like several different bedrooms with just light?" Well to begin answering this question i will start with the the basic information the playwright gave me about the play: