As soon as they arrived, they noticed clothes were hanging everywhere. Some were garments being bought and sold, and, as the creative team learned, they came as donations from other countries in the wake of the hurricane.

So as soon as you enter the theater, scores of T-shirts, skirts, flip-flops and other pieces of clothing are hung on the walls with clotheslines.

What appears to be a downed power-line pole extends into the seats to further convey the hurricane’s disruption — though this pole also ends up being relevant to the plot.

“The idea of a felled power pole that had crushed some seats was exciting to us from the jump,” Mr. Laffrey said. “That was, from a visual and experiential standpoint, pretty interesting.”

Wrecking the Beach