FORGET the Yellow Brick Road. Pilot Theatre Company is building a hi-tech new Road at York Theatre Royal, a Road that will change in appearance each day.

The two design talents charged with that task are Dawn Allsopp, set and costume designer, and Arnim Friess, lighting-and-projection designer. Between them, they have created the multi-media setting for Road, Jim Cartwright's story of lost souls, repressed dreams and desires to escape: a setting involving a revolving set and the use of digital projection and live CCTV cameras.

Dawn's set design has been in place not only for tech week at the theatre but also for the rehearsals in the Walmgate studios. "The benefits of having it there from the start is that the actors have an extra three weeks to work in it and become familiar with it, and ideas can be added as we go along," says Dawn.

The set has the look of a tough but tatty, anonymous modern town. "We talked a lot about this Road being our road, our street, but it's not a red-brick street: it's one of those concrete environments near shops, near flyovers; much more inner-city.

"In this play, the set also represents the urban slag heap of life, derelict it would seem except that it's not derelict. It's thriving.

"That's where the idea of using a revolve came from: it's a heap, and it looks like a heap of mess, but it has all these different levels to it, with walls and ladders to climb. That gives you lots of performance spaces within a small, compact space."

For inspiration for the design of steel frames, fibre glass and textured bricks with a durable, tough-wearing paint finish, Dawn took photos of derelict shopping centres in Smethwick and Bilston in her native West Midlands.

"They're as good as anywhere to use for research as they're universal; they're recognisably bland concrete structures," she says.

She has enjoyed the chance to create her own landscape from scratch.

"With this play, I've had to come up with a design that represents a journey and has all these very physical aspects to it.

"It's been very liberating as it's a much more fluid design process than something like a Noel Coward drawing-room comedy. It's exciting answering all the design questions that the play poses," says Dawn, who is also designing the Theatre Royal's autumn production of Kay Mellor's A Passionate Woman, roof, loft, hot-air balloon and all.

For Arnim Friess, a former German newspaper photographer who now specialises in "designing dynamic performance environments", Road marks his third collaboration with Pilot Theatre Company, following on from Lord Of The Rings and Rumble Fish.

He has an MA in Scenography from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, and those studies inform his digital and CCTV work for Road.

"Scenography is a translation of a Czech word, and the idea is that theatre design is more than painting backdrops. It looks at the whole visual element and takes a holistic approach to design and lighting," he says.

Putting flesh on those bones, he says: "Using video and DVD projections sometimes looks like cinema, but it's nothing to do with cinema because cinema relates the experience from only a 2-D perspective. Theatre is always focused on the human being on stage, and theatre goes on all around them. Our work is live."

At first he used the word "terrifying" to describe Pilot's use of four CCTV cameras each show, feeding live images to and from stage and foyer bar. Then he thought again. "No, interesting is the word. This is the largest technical get-up yet for a Pilot show, and that's exciting."

Road, Pilot Theatre Company, York Theatre Royal, until September 28, then on tour for six months. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:08 Friday, September 13, 2002