By Sean Meyer/London Community News

The Great Gatsby tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire living the life of American royalty in 1920s-era Long Island, N.Y.

Although Gatsby had unlimited wealth and was living in an opulent mansion, Bill Layton didn’t have quite the same budget in recreating that world on the stage of The Grand Theatre.

Layton is both set and costume designer for the Canadian premier of the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, adapted by Simon Levy, which is now running until March 3 on The Grand’s main stage.

“I can’t recreate a Long Island mansion, but I can recreate an element of it, a sofa or a shirt. You have to carefully pick what you want to show and it can evoke the era, we just fill in the rest with our imagination,” Layton said. “People can do that in theatre, through the dialogue, the actors, the lighting. This was a tour de force for the props department. They created the car, the period furniture; it was a huge effort.”

Layton is no stranger to taking full advantage of The Grand’s main stage. Layton has worked as both set and costume designer for numerous productions at The Grand, including The Hobbit, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Wizard of Oz and Dreamgirls. Most recently, Layton worked at The Grand as set designer for the wildly successful production of Cinderella.

Taking on the dual role may not be unusual for Layton, but it is something he looks forward to doing and was just one of the reasons he took on Gatsby. The dual role allows Layton to know exactly what the actors will be wearing on each set piece, an advantage he says when bringing his vision to the stage.

But in addition, Layton says it was the opportunity to embrace a time period he has long admired as the big selling feature for taking on this particular show.

“It is an era I just love, the ‘20s. I have never actually done anything in that period,” Layton said. “I have done art deco before, but this is set in the early ‘20s, which for me is the really exciting part. It is so rare that you get to do something like that. It is such an amazing design era.”

The so-called Roaring 20s is an era Layton said was one of excitement and passion, in large part, because it took place on the heels of the First World War and the restricted lifestyles people needed to adopt.

“People became a lot freer; there were a lot less restrictions. Just like the ‘60s were. People wanted to express themselves,” Layton said. “Women started riding bicycles and smoking and driving, everyone was having a great time. It didn’t last long of course, the Crash (the Great Depression) took care of that.”

The world Layton helped create in Cinderella was one of pure fantasy. This production, however, has a reality to it that Layton said required a great deal of research. To make sure he was on the right track, Layton spent approximately five weeks doing his research, watching silent movies and looking through many books and illustrations.

All that research takes the production a long way, but Layton said it was the staff at The Grand that took the show to the next step.

“It always works out better than I imagined because I am working with the staff at The Grand Theatre. I envision it, but they take it and interpret it and bring it to a whole other level,” Layton said. “It is better than I could have ever imagined. Recently I looked back on the books of the period and I thought, ‘Yes, that was right.’ But really, it is even better than that, because everything is so alive.”

For more information on The Great Gatsby, which is running until March 3, or to purchase tickets, visit www.grandtheatre.com.