One afternoon while wandering around the outskirts of the town, he spied a be-goateed rural citizen sitting on his front porch with his feet propped on the bannisters and apparently in no pain at all.

It is also a tool for communication, both to your actors and your audience, because the way in which the groundplan shapes the space reveals much about the how the director and designers view the possible uses of the space, its owner(s), and its purpose. The groundplan provides you with the opportunity to create a variety of physical relationships among the characters onstage and shapes the possible patterns of movement that the characters might follow during the action.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.

In this situation, the following instructions were given to each person: Make any kind of object out of plasticene.