One of the first topics the scenic design team and the director, Dennis Courtney, discussed was that the show is a love letter to theatre. It should be "pretty". There should be two distinct different worlds: the world of Baltimore in the 1948 and the world of Shakespeare's Italy. Baltimore needed to be warm and earthy to capture the idea of having "two boards and a passion" (Alexandre Dumas) to create a good show. Shakespeare's Italy should be luscious, vibrant, and romantic. Kiss Me, Kate is a traditional musical theatre piece with extremely specific scene shifts with the timing dictated by the music. The traffic patterns and convention of wing and drop set are ingrained into the fabric of the show. First and foremost, the show had to function as the vehicle for the production within the parameters of the music and then be aesthetically pleasing.