photo by: Shawn Valverde

Cast members rehearse "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

Backstage, Theatre Lawrence is a bit like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; but instead of industrious Oompa Loompas whipping up candies there’s a small army of volunteers building, painting, decorating, sewing — putting in thousands of man hours to create an extraordinarily short-lived confection: the set for a few hours of live theater.

Since the end of October, longtime technical director and designer James Diemer and his crew have been bringing to life the exotic world of Willy Wonka for Theatre Lawrence’s Christmas show, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” a musical based on Roald Dahl’s beloved 1964 novel and the classic 1971 film starring Gene Wilder as the eccentric candymaker who lets five golden-ticket winners into the inner sanctum of his mysterious factory.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

James Diemer, Theatre Lawrence’s technical director and designer, views computer models of his set design for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

As with every Theatre Lawrence production, “Charlie” began with Diemer sitting down to a bank of computers in his cozily cluttered office and designing detailed models of the set — how it will look and how it will work. For some shows — say, a play like 2022’s production of “Collected Stories,” set in a New York apartment — how it will look is 90% of the endeavor, but for a show like “Charlie,” how it will work is the first order of business.

This show, like 2019’s “Matilda” — another Dahl-based work — is “an endless parade of special effects,” Diemer says. It’s not the most challenging set he has ever designed in his 10 years and 80-some shows with Theatre Lawrence — that would be 2014’s “Mary Poppins,” with its flying nanny, he says — but it’s up there.

“This is not an easy show to design because the effect has to come first. We have to be able to do whatever the ‘child murder effect’ is successfully, and then I will figure out what that actually looks like aesthetically,” he says.

By “child murder effect” he means Dahl’s uniquely comic — if vaguely sinister — ways of removing misbehaving characters from Wonka’s tour. Think spoiled-rotten Veruca Salt being tossed by squirrels into the “bad nut” garbage chute or television-obsessed Mike Teavee being miniaturized through teleportation. On top of those effects, there are two other kids to bump off, a boat on a chocolate river to manage, as well as a glass elevator, all of the factory’s candy-making contraptions and a collection of Oompa-Loompa costumes (made to order by Theatre Lawrence costume designer Jane Pennington).

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

James Diemer, Theatre Lawrence’s technical director and designer, discusses the Oompa-Loompa outfits with costume designer Jane Pennington ahead of the production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Oompa-Loompa arms are pictured a few weeks ahead of Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Adding to the challenge is the form of Theatre Lawrence’s stage, which is surrounded on three sides by audience members, making it impossible to hide scene changes and effects behind a giant curtain and necessitating special attention to the sight lines of 300 viewers.

But Diemer thrives on a challenge, and he excels in this space, says Danny Rogovein, the assistant tech director and lighting designer for “Charlie.”

“James has a unique skill to read a script and work with a director and create a world that fits our unique space,” he says. “… The more magic that’s in a show, the harder it is to make it look effortless, and the amount of engineering skills and knowledge that he has and the ability to have an idea and work through the process of figuring out how to physically realize it is not something everyone has.”

Throughout, Diemer is guided by the script, not other productions of the show. In fact, it’s often the case that he has no familiarity with a show beyond having maybe heard of it. “Mamma Mia!”? Never saw it until he was handed the script in 2022. “Hello, Dolly!”? Ditto.

If anything is going to rankle his usual calm, it’s a director expecting him to imitate some facet of a previous production.

“I’m like, what are you talking about? That’s not in the script, and it turns out that’s just how it’s always been done,” he says, but “why would we do that? We can do our own thing. We can do whatever we want to. That’s the point.”

His insistence on this point, though, is not to hog creative control but to foster original collaboration with theater staff, and one is hard pressed to find a director in Lawrence who hasn’t appreciated that.

Jessica Franz-Martin, who is directing “Charlie,” notes how “easy it can be to go online and look at what someone else did and then just put that on the stage.” But that runs counter to the spirit of live theater, she says, which is enriched through interpretation rather than imitation.

Of course in the case of Willy Wonka — who hasn’t seen or read some version of it in its 60 years and successive adaptations? — there will be nods to, say, the Wilder film, like the “Pure Imagination” and “The Candyman Can” songs. And there will be the stark shift in scenery from the Bucket shack where Charlie lives in Dickensian poverty with his four bedridden grandparents to the kaleidoscopic abundance of sweet treats inside Wonka’s factory.

“James (Diemer) does such a great job of using different colors to help evoke that emotional response of ‘Oh God, it’s candy! I want it all!'” she says.

Franz-Martin notes that the much-heralded production quality of Theatre Lawrence’s shows invariably involves mention of Diemer’s work, which, given a community theater budget, relies heavily on sheer inventiveness. A credit card can help solve selective issues, but more often than not Diemer’s reaching for his soldering iron or computer keyboard to find solutions to highly individualized problems, like how to design a rig that would rotate heavy parts of the set in “A Chorus Line” — a rig that worked perfectly in model form but that failed dismally just 48 hours before showtime, necessitating last-minute brainstorming (Diemer’s biggest scare to date, he says) — or how to create the illusion in “Matilda” that a child was entirely consuming a huge cake live on stage; perfecting a ratio of chemical foam that could be mashed and hidden was the solution to that problem, the most puzzling that Diemer says he has encountered.

While Diemer, who’s working toward a theater PhD at KU, has carried forward lessons from every show, he has yet to repeat a show at Theatre Lawrence, and even if some show were to be revived, he and his crew would start from scratch. That’s because the carefully thought-out, meticulously constructed set would have been entirely discarded, except for bits and pieces that could be repurposed for a different show.

“But a mixing vat that shoots out fireballs and glowing lollipops?” Rogovein asks. “We’re never going to use that again.”

And that doesn’t bother Diemer one bit. Theater isn’t an Everlasting Gobstopper, as it were, but is an ephemeral sweetness, enjoyed until the curtain falls, then savored in memory.

“I’m always ready to get onto something new,” he says. … “Every night is a magical one-of-a-kind thing that must come to an end. If I didn’t believe that fully, I’d make movies.”

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” opens on Friday at 4660 Bauer Farm Drive and will have multiple performances through Dec. 22. For information about tickets, call 785-843-SHOW (7469) or go online at theatrelawrence.com.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Oompa-Loompa costumes are pictured ahead of Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A volunteer seamstress demonstrates a squirrel costume made in Jane Pennington’s workshop ahead of Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Jane Pennington, Theatre Lawrence’s costume designer, displays a costume to be worn by the Violet Beauregarde character in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Some painted candy props are pictured that will be used in Theatre Lawrence’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Danny Rogovein, assistant tech director at Theatre Lawrence, moves some props specially designed for Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Rogovein is also the lighting designer for the show.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Danny Rogovein, assistant tech director at Theatre Lawrence, shows the mixing vat to be used in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Theatre Lawrence staff member Mary Ann Saunders paints wood grain on a bed post to make it look old wood for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Theatre Lawrence volunteer Jeff Mueller paints a shower rod prop for Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim callahan/Journal-World

James Diemer, Theatre Lawrence’s technical director and designer, checks out a Wonka Bar prop ahead of the production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Volunteer Lucy Shottenkirk, center, wrapped 200-plus bars for the show.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A crate full of Wonka Bar props made by volunteers for Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Theatre Lawrence volunteers Erica Henderson, left, and Janna Davis paint acorns for the production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Parts of the set for Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” are pictured on Nov. 11 in various stages of completion a few weeks before opening night.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

James Diemer, Theatre Lawrence’s technical director and designer, discusses the “good nut/bad nut” chutes as his team worked to develop them ahead of the production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

photo by: Shawn Valverde

The cast rehearses the opening scene of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Cast members rehearse “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Nolan Stewart plays Charlie Bucket in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Nikki Hammond and Kelly Schellman rehearse “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Jaryl Perkins as Grandpa Joe and Nolan Stewart as Charlie Bucket rehearse a dance number at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Gwentessa Alfie and Harrison Willmoth rehearse a scene at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Maggie Davis plays Violet Beauregarde in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Spencer Greenwood plays Willy Wonka at a rehearsal at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Cast members rehearse “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at Theatre Lawrence on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.