Anything that isn't supposed to be visible to the audience gets painted black. The floor, the platform supports, the legs to staircases. Especially the legs to staircases. We're using five or six staircases for our current show, and I had to paint the legs of all of them black. There's a moment where you don't know where the staircase will be places, so you just paint it all. When in doubt, paint it black.