9Scenery

© T Charles Erickson

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© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Scene Designer

• The visual and aural elements of design provide an audience with an understanding of time, place, mood, etc.– Scene designer—responsible for the stage set– Costume designer—responsible for the outfits

and accessories worn by the performers– Lighting designer—responsible for the light,

illumination of the stage space– Sound designer—responsible for the aural

world of the play and the sound system

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The Scene Designer

• Designers make connections between symbols and ideas, creating the world of the play in which the performers interact. They deal with the practical and aesthetic concerns of the stage production.

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History of Stage Design

• Originally created simply by physical space for performance—no “sets”

• Some special devices to create effects– Greeks—facade of the stage house– Medieval—“mansions”

• The beginnings of scenic design • The evolution of the proscenium stage • The growth of realism as the predominant

stage style

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Scenic Design Today

• Everything we encounter in real-life can be considered a scenic design.

• The architecture of the room, the furniture, the color, the fabrics, the details—all work to create a unified whole that provides a sense of place, time, and mood.

• How does this translate to the stage environment?

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Scenic Design Today

• The designer must ask:– Questions of scale– Performer relationship to space– Specific choices of what inhabits the world of

the play in regards to symbolic meaning as well as practical implications

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Objectives of Stage Design

• Creating an environment for the performers and for the performance

• Helping to set the mood and style of the production• Helping to distinguish realistic from nonrealistic theatre• Establishing the locale and period in which the play takes

place• Evolving a design concept in concert with the director

and other designers• Where appropriate, providing a central image or visual

metaphor for the production• Ensuring that the scenery is coordinated with other

production elements• Solving practical design problems

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Realistic and Nonrealistic Scenery

• Realistic theatre – Settings that resemble the real-life counterpart

(traditional western theatre)

• Nonrealistic theatre – Uses imagination and symbol to evoke

meaning and spatial ideas (traditional eastern performance)

• Regardless of the style, the designer must indicate locale, period, and a sense of the play.

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The Design Concept

• The design concept:– A unifying idea carried out visually

• Important when shifting the play in time and place—allows audience to know when/where the story occurs (this happens most often with Shakespeare or with Greek works)

– Establishes central image or metaphor– Provides the means to coordinate the whole

design—all the design elements

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The Design Concept

• The design concept must be unified with the director’s concept to insure that the audience receives the same message in the production.

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The Process of Scene Design

• The six elements of design:1. Line2. Mass and composition3. Texture4. Color5. Rhythm6. Movement

• Designers commonly use these elements in discussing design choices with the rest of the team and the director

• A common language to communicate artistic ideas

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The Practical Aspects of Scene Design

• Stage design is determined by the physical space of the performance.

• The scenic designer develops a “ground plan” that lays out the location of walls, furniture, etc., from a “bird’s eye view” of the stage.

• Space is determined differently by the types of stage spaces.

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Ground Plan

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Stage Area

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Materials of Scene Design

• Elements and terms commonly used by scenic designers:– Turntable– Wagons– “Shifting” scenery– Fly– Flats– Cutouts– Scrim– Screen projections

© T Charles Erickson

© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Special Effects

• Special effects have become more important in “spectacle” productions to allow theatre to compete with film.

• Special effects can include:– Fog, ghosts, knives, swords, breakaway

props and furniture, etc.

• Often special effects are created by all the design team working together to create a single effect.

© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Steps to Scenic Design

1. Read the script2. Meet with the director to discuss ideas and concept3. Develop rough sketches (thumbnails)4. More meetings with the director5. Complete sketch of the design (rendering)6. Upon director approval, make a 3-D scale model

(white model vs. color model)7. Develop the ground plan and elevations

• This is a mutable process that changes with every director/designer relationship as well as different production needs.

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The Collaborative Process

The scenic designer does The scenic designer does not work alone in the not work alone in the

theatre process…theatre process…

And this is only a basic crew with no special effects…

Director

Scenic designer

Lightingdesigner

Sounddesigner

Costumedesigner

Propsdesigner Technical

director

Make-updesigner

Costume shop

manager

Stage manager

Mastercarpenter

Sceneshop

Runningcrew

Soundtechnician

Masterelectrician