Staging decisions

Given we don't audition for a 8 or more weeks it may seem odd I am already looking at the set. Or it may not. But I've found myself needing to clarify the set to clarify the script cuts.

The theatre is a huge round with two rectangular boxes added on opposite sides- one for the foyer and toilets, the other for a dressing room and school supply room.

The seats are on one side in three blocks covering most of the half round. The space is a large circle. Ideally there'd be a huge revolve or multilevels to the building.

Our constraints include:
* There is no fly floor.
* The beams, while adequate, can't easily support people (which means there are unlikely to be flying witches).
* We have to strike the set every day so that the school who we share it with can use it for assemblies, as their gym and for dance and other classes.
* Actors behind the audience can't get to the back of the auditorium without going outside.
* The floor is polished light brown wood and past performances there have shown it makes blackouts hard and the floor reflects a lot of light.
* The floor is sprung and makes a lot of noise if hard shoes are worn on it.
* The architect has achieved a fantastic feat by making a round space with poor sight lines!
* If it rains it drowns out the sound in the auditorium.
* You can't use smoke machines as the fans in the ceiling sound like a helicopter hovering overhead.
* Oh and from the back of the auditorium you need to be miked to be heard in the audience UNLESS you have strategically placed buffers.

What do I need/want?

The script calls for a castle (with bed chambers, banquet hall, entrance area), a blasted heath, some battlefields, roads, a forest, the English Court, a witches' hideway and battlements.
I need a ghost, some apparitions, and theoretically flying witches (Hecate and the other three, not the first three).
Other special effects are smoke, lightening, and some sort of cauldron.

Sooooooo......
I've decided that I can only have minimal set and will got for a table and chairs, and a cauldron (cliche cliche). I need one small rostra, and the rest of the set will be lights, blacks (tabs), and dry ice.

For layout I'm intending to have a black curtain in a straight line as close to the audience as possible, with a white curtain in the middle of it to act as a screen for front and back lighting.
Macbeth's castle will be in the audience, and the banquets will be up against the front row with the audience as guests. The heath, battlefields and the roads will be up against the curtains or played behind them. The English court needs to be up somewhere... not sure where but we have a huge mobile tower that two actors can work on at extreme stage left or right. The two doors between the audience will be Duncan's chamber, the door to the castle, Lady Macbeth's chamber and misc internal doors. The white curtain will lift in the last scenes and there will be a blacks behind it to allow for the advance of Macduff and the army.

I have decided that despite all the fantastic space we have, that the disadvanages call for a tight space and this will need to add to the claustrophobia and feeling of evil. Also if the audience finds themselves in Macbeth's castle it may work to our advantage thematically, with some referential nod to the evil without, that the castle should protect you from, being let in.