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GREENSBORO — Howard C. Jones designs big dreams.

So when the Triad Stage scenic designer envisioned a lawn for his set of William Inge's drama, "Picnic," he naturally pictured real grass.

But not a lush, plush lawn.

"We are in Kansas, on Labor Day," Jones says. "Grass is dead."

Dead grass he got.

The downtown theater's set crew has carpeted its thrust stage floor with dead sod for this month's production of the 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Theater-goers in side sections will walk across a pea gravel road and grass to get to their seats. Those in front rows can even take off their shoes.

"Oh, my gosh!" theater managing director Richard Whittington said on first sight last week. "I wonder what audiences will say when they come in and see a lawn."

Triad Stage audiences have come to expect creative sets.

Jones, who has designed several, has turned to dead greenery before. He set the 2007 production of "Tobacco Road" against a backdrop of dead kudzu vines.

"I enjoy the wow factor we get from the audience when they come in and see what we have done," says technical director Christian Young, who oversees set construction.

Young relishes the challenge of making a designer's dreams reality -- within a tight budget.

Quality fake grass to cover 1,200 square feet of theater floor would have cost about $6,000, he discovered.

Real live sod would cost $400 to $600.

Dead sod? Dirt cheap.

Operators of Super-Sod at Piedmont Triad Farmers Market said they couldn't sell dead sod. But if Triad Stage bought the pallets that it came on, they would give them the sod, Young said.

So for $30, plus labor, the theater got its dead lawn.

How did its crew carpet a wood and Masonite stage floor with sod?

Carefully.

They stapled sheets of plastic across the floor to protect it. On top, they stapled heavy-duty painters' drop cloths.

They rolled out strips of sod across the top. They hope that remaining moisture will help seal the sod to the cloth below as it dries. They don't want it slipping and sliding.

This is one lawn they don't want to grow, or they will have to mow it.

They hired an exterminator to rid it of any bugs. They flame-proofed sections where any play characters smoke. One actor changed from high-heeled shoes to broader heels to avoid aerating the lawn.

"My biggest concern is to make it all work for the actors' safety," Young says.

The grass becomes the yard between two neighboring all-female households, preparing for the annual Labor Day picnic in their small Kansas town.

But the sudden arrival of handsome young drifter Hal Carter stirs emotions as he develops an instant attraction with young Madge, turning lives upside down.

Jones admits to feeling trepidation before he sees his designs come to life. But as he and Young study it, they like what they see.

"It kind of looks like my yard," Young says, "except mine is a little deader."

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com