Working In The Theatre: Scenic Design
Summary
TLDRThe speaker reflects on their journey as a set designer, with early inspirations from opera and a pivotal mentorship from Hal Prince. They draw parallels between set design and architecture, emphasizing the ephemeral nature of stage scenery. The creative process involves concept development, model building, and collaboration with directors and lighting designers. Challenges include transforming spaces over time and engaging audiences viscerally. The speaker also discusses the impermanence and sustainability concerns of set design, highlighting the joy of constant learning and the satisfaction of seeing a design come to life with actors.
Takeaways
- 🎭 The speaker's initial fascination with stage scenery came from witnessing a Stonehenge-like set and the illusion of a heavy stone being moved easily during an opera.
- 🤝 The speaker met Hal Prince, who became a mentor, and it took about six months to overcome the intimidation of working with such a significant figure in American theatre history.
- 🏗️ The transition from architecture to set design was natural for the speaker, as the tasks involved in both disciplines, such as building models and drafting, are similar.
- 🎨 The speaker's introduction to painting and three-dimensional work eventually led to an interest in scenography, with a teacher suggesting the field.
- 💡 A strong concept or idea is crucial for the speaker's design process, as it guides all other visual choices and helps in avoiding design dilemmas.
- 🖼️ The set design's role in theatre is to frame the human figure, akin to how a camera frames subjects in film, with the set and lighting working together to create this effect.
- 🔄 The speaker views scenery design as a transformation of space over time, focusing on the seamless transition between scenes to support the storytelling.
- 👀 Engaging the audience's interest and creating a visceral connection with the performance is a priority in the speaker's design considerations.
- 🛠️ The speaker emphasizes the importance of collaboration with directors, lighting designers, and other crew members to realize a cohesive vision for the production.
- 🌐 The speaker has started to incorporate video and projections into set design, sometimes taking on the role of projection designer to align the visuals with their vision.
- 🏚️ The ephemeral nature of set design is acknowledged, with the speaker expressing concern about the environmental impact and waste associated with the disposal of sets after a production's run.
Q & A
What was the speaker's first realization about stage scenery?
-The speaker's first realization about stage scenery was during an opera when they saw a man push what appeared to be a twenty thousand pound stone, but was clearly not, understanding it as an artifice representing something else.
How did Hal Prince initially influence the speaker?
-Hal Prince influenced the speaker by sending a letter after their first meeting, expressing appreciation for the speaker's work, and later becoming a mentor to the speaker throughout their career.
What is the relationship between set design and architecture according to the speaker?
-The speaker sees set design and architecture as flip sides of the same coin, with tasks such as building models and drafting being essentially the same, but set design is more ephemeral.
How did the speaker's experience in Italy influence their career path?
-The speaker's experience in Italy started with an interest in painting, which then led them back to three-dimensional work, building installations and objects, and eventually being introduced to scenography.
What is the speaker's approach to conceptualizing a set design?
-The speaker finds that having a good concept or idea that encapsulates the show in a simple way helps determine every other choice in the design, guiding them through all the visual choices.
How does the speaker view the role of the set in theater?
-The speaker views the set as creating the frame and surround for presenting the human figure in theater, similar to how the camera frames things in film, with the set largely handling this task with some help from lighting.
What is the speaker's recent perspective on scenery design?
-The speaker's recent perspective on scenery design is that it is a transformation of space over time, focusing on how to get from point A to point B quickly and seamlessly to help tell the story.
How does the speaker engage with the audience's experience in their designs?
-The speaker is interested in engaging the audience in a more visceral way, considering the relationship between the audience and the play, especially when designing for flexible seating.
What is the speaker's process for collaborating with directors on a play?
-The speaker's process involves reading the play without preconceptions, having a long talk with the director to understand their vision, and focusing on the feel of the play rather than specific design elements.
How does the speaker use models in their design process?
-The speaker uses models as a way to quickly move from an idea to a three-dimensional form, allowing them to catch compositional issues and make changes before finalizing the design.
What is the speaker's view on the impermanence of set design compared to architecture?
-The speaker views the impermanence of set design as a tragedy, as sets are often thrown away after a production ends, and they try to keep and reuse things as much as possible, coming from an architectural background.
Outlines
🎭 Early Influences and Mentorship
The narrator recalls vivid childhood memories of their mother, an opera singer, taking them backstage during a performance of Verdi's Macbeth, where they first grasped the concept of stage scenery as an artifice. They also recount meeting Hal Prince, a mentor whose influence helped shape their career in set design.
🎨 Transition from Architecture to Set Design
The narrator explains how they transitioned from architecture to set design, highlighting the similarities between the two fields. They describe their initial foray into painting and installation art, and how a teacher suggested scenography, leading them to graduate school and a career in theater.
🏗️ Conceptualizing and Creating Set Designs
The process of set design is discussed in detail, emphasizing the importance of a strong concept. The narrator describes their method of developing ideas, creating models, and collaborating with directors and other designers. They highlight the iterative nature of refining designs and the challenges of bringing a set from concept to reality.
📐 Role of Scenery in Theater and Audience Engagement
The significance of set design in framing the action on stage is explored. The narrator discusses how set design influences audience engagement and the collaborative process with directors to achieve the desired atmosphere and visual storytelling. They also touch on the evolving role of scenery in the context of modern theater.
🛠️ Collaborative Process and Material Inspiration
The narrator delves into the collaborative nature of set design, particularly with choreographers and lighting designers. They describe how initial inspirations often come from materials and the importance of physical exploration and experimentation in their creative process. The use of models as a key tool for visualizing and refining designs is also emphasized.
🚀 Bringing Designs to Life
The final stages of set design involve technical drawings, construction, and installation. The narrator outlines the journey from model to full-scale set, including the challenges of technical rehearsals and the collaborative effort required to bring a set to life. They reflect on the impermanence of set design and the importance of creating impactful, though temporary, environments.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Opera singer
💡Stage scenery
💡Hal Prince
💡Scenography
💡Ephemeral
💡Technical rehearsals
💡Transformation of space
💡Engagement
💡Material selection
💡Projection design
💡Collaboration
Highlights
The speaker's initial understanding of stage scenery as an artifice came from watching a scene change during an opera.
Meeting Hal Prince, a significant mentor in the speaker's career, occurred right after graduate school.
Working with Hal Prince was initially intimidating, but it took about six months for the speaker to overcome this fear.
The speaker's transition from architecture to set design was influenced by the similar tasks involved, such as building models and drafting.
A painting class in college sparked the speaker's interest in three-dimensional work, eventually leading to set design.
Scenography was suggested as a career by a teacher, prompting the speaker to attend graduate school for theatre.
The speaker's first job in the field was as an assistant designer for George Seaton, who had an architecture background.
A strong concept for a set design helps guide all other visual choices and prevents design dilemmas.
The set in theatre serves as a frame and surround for the human figure, similar to how a camera frames subjects in film.
The speaker's recent approach to set design involves transforming space over time to enhance storytelling.
Engaging the audience in a visceral way is a key consideration in set design, especially with flexible seating.
Constant learning is a favorite aspect of being a designer, as each play brings new ideas and inspirations.
The speaker values the collaborative process with directors to understand the feel and atmosphere of a play.
Creating a rough model is a key step in the design process, allowing the speaker to refine the concept over time.
Technical rehearsals are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of a set in supporting the storytelling.
The speaker finds early-stage material selection and inspiration crucial for the design process.
The speaker's process involves extensive research, including visiting libraries and exploring materials.
Three-dimensional models are preferred over drawings for their intuitive and accurate representation of space.
Collaboration with lighting and projection designers is essential for the final look and feel of the set.
The speaker's aesthetic leans towards abstract and sculptural designs rather than realism.
The speaker discusses the challenges and considerations of designing sets for plays that are not fully written yet.
Budget constraints influence set design, but a strong concept can adapt to different budget levels.
Theater set design's impermanence is a concern for the speaker, as sets are often discarded after a production.
The speaker's preference for using real materials over painted versions can sometimes present practical challenges.
The speaker values the comfort and inspiration actors find in the set, as it indicates a successful design.
Collaborating with choreographers is different and often more aligned with the speaker's architectural background.
Transcripts
[music]
My mother trained as an opera singer and when I was quite young I vividly remember
her taking me backstage during the intermission of Verdi's Macbeth and I
watched the scene change and there was a sort of big Stonehenge looking set on
stage and this man walked out and pushed one of the boulders across the stage and
I was just shocked because it looked for all the world like a twenty thousand
pound stone and yet clearly it wasn't and I think that was the first time I
kind of understood stage scenery as an artifice, as something representing
something else.
I met Hal Prince when I was getting out
of graduate school, we talked for a minute or two when I was completely
overwhelmed and terrified of him but the next week he sent me a letter
and said it was nice to meet you it was nice to see your work so Hal has always
been a mentor to me that way. The first time I was really working with him I
think it took me about six months not to be completely terrified.
You walk into his office and the entire history of the 20th century of American theatre is on the wall.
He either directed or produced most of it.
People often asked me, "How did you how did you find your way
to doing set design from architecture?" and I always think it's a funny question
because to me the tasks that I'm doing are exactly the same: building models and drafting.
However, it's almost like set design and architecture the flip sides
of the same coin that with set design it's it's a completely ephemeral thing.
I took my first painting class my senior year of college and after that I wanted
to do a little bit more painting and I spent a year in Italy ostensibly
painting but then making my way back to three-dimensional the 3-dimensional world.
I started building installations and objects and it was actually a
teacher of mine he said to me one day "Have you thought about scenography?"
[LAUGHS]
He's British so you know that's their word for set design so then I went to
graduate school because I didn't know anything about theatre
When I graduated I worked as an assistant designer for a few years and I assisted
a designer named George Seaton who also had an architecture background.
His studio was sort of like a sculpture studio, you know and it was great.
I find if I get a good concept, a good idea that really kind of encapsulates
the show in a simple way it it helps me determine every other choice I need to
make in the design and everything else just kind of falls into place because it
answers a question and sort of guides me through all the other visual choices
that I do and if I don't have a good concept or a good solid idea for it
that's when I get into trouble and I start thinking well I don't know what
the answer is I don't know whether it should be blue or red because my idea
isn't strong enough.
A huge part of what the set does in theater is it creates the frame and the
surround that we present the human figure in. I think what in film the
camera does in framing things the set largely has to do in theatre with some
help from the lighting.
I've started thinking recently of scenery design as a
transformation of space over time is kind of what I'm doing.
A big part of my
job is how do I get from point A to point B quickly and seamlessly in a way
hopefully that helps tell the story well.
What I like to think about actually is like what is the nature of the event?
I've always been interested in like how the audience is engaging with the piece
like how to engage the audience in a more visceral way, so often when I'm
designing a play when there's flexible seating I think about what the
relationship is between the audience and the play actually that's sort of the
first question that I that I think about.
One of my favorite things about being a designer is that I'm constantly learning.
When I get a play that I've been asked to design, I'll read it and I try to read
it without too much preconception of anything I just sort of read it and see
what images pop into my head and before I spend too much time trying to figure
out what the set should be I'd sit down with the director and I just like to
have a good long talk with the director or maybe several good talks with the
director to find out what they think the play is about what they're trying to to
get across in our telling of the play, and I don't tend to be
interested in you know do you think the set should be green or do you think it
should be this style or those kind of things so much but I want to know what's
the feel of it? Does it feel cold? Does it feel warm? Does it feel friendly? Does it feel unfriendly?
I can make a model a sort of a rough model but finished enough that
it looks like something I just sit it on the shelf for you know a week or you
know for a few days at least so it's kind of there in my studio while I'm
working on other things and I kind of see it in my peripheral vision and
usually then I'll start to think "Oh, well, that doesn't look quite right," or some
part of it will bug me and just by having it kind of there on the periphery
I start to catch things that I want to change about it or the feel of it isn't
quite right, that the kinetic energy in it isn't quite right, and I'll start to
mess with those things compositionally.
Somewhere in there is where we sort of nail down what the set is and the model
gets more and more finished and more and more looking like what the final set is
going to be.
And then I have to actually get that you know that small model and
make the big version of it and for that then I've got to do a bunch of technical
drawings and we send it out to a shop to build the full-scale set and then
ultimately that moves from the shop that's built it gets taken apart and
brought into the theatre and installed in the theatre and then we go into
technical rehearsals where you add lighting and you add the sound and the
actors get onto the set for the first time and that's really where it all
comes together and that's where you learn whether the set was actually a
good idea or not I kind of really don't know until we're running the play on
this on the set, and you see if it works for telling the story or not.
Sometimes, something looked really beautiful and seemed like a great idea just doesn't
somehow work to tell the story the way you thought it would and sometimes
something that I really thought might not work, you know, I was worried
about it or didn't think it was a great idea and suddenly once you get the
actors in there to activate it and live inside it, it becomes alive and it really
does work.
When I'm in early stages of working on a project, often it involves going to buy materials.
Sometimes one of the early inspirations for design can be a material.
I will go to the paper store and see like what kind of paper you know feels right.
This is my favorite part is you know is kind of
trolling about and like kind of letting your thoughts wander and seeing
what hits me- going to the library! That's a big part of my process.
Sometimes I go and I just like wander through the aisles and just pick
random books like sometimes you don't really know what you're looking for yet,
There's also this room called the picture collection at the
Mid- Manhattan library which I pretty much go there at the beginning of every design process.
I don't know there's something about being in that space that is more
contemplative than sitting in front of a computer.
I tend to draw only as much as
I need to in order to figure out the idea.
And then, I try to move to a model form as quickly as possible that I feel like I'm really
a very three-dimensional person and so I think I figure things out more
intuitively in a model form.
For me models don't lie so in a drawing you can
make it work, like you can fudge things you don't, the implication of
depth in a drawing is just all by perspective and so you can fake that so
there are things I think that you might not realize in a drawing but as soon as
you build it in a model three dimensionally you realize
"Oh, we're going to see that side."
And then in communicating with directors and
choreographers and people who don't might not necessarily understand a
technical drawing- like things exist in three dimensions, so a model is just a
smaller form of it but it's closer to reality so it's easier to understand and
communicate with other people.
So I'm actually just getting ready to ship
this model to Chicago, to the theater, but I actually have built a new object that
I need to look at in this model so I need to unpack it.
This is a play that's about the urbanization of China, it's called
The World of Extreme Happiness. We have decided to use a kind of neutral
envelope for all of the scenes. So then this space opens up and actually acts
like a diorama this is a moment when they're wandering through the
countryside.
You know it's written in a pretty filmic
way and we cut from like you know it's the magic of you know the fluorescently
lit factory, essentially, then the final scene is in a mental hospital, that's
sort of the final the final scene.
Basically I've shot photographed every
scene so this is this is the beginning and then the second scene
so I've storyboarded through with the model.
It's a projection moment.
This was the grass scene that I was setting up and there's there's also a backdrop
The idea for act 1 really came to me in one of those lucky Eureka moments.
The first draft that I read was 150 pages long it had 50 locations in it and all
of them were very short scene so I had to get from one place to the next very quickly.
I'd done a model of a kind of an empty backstage approach to the play and
all the different locations would be you know an actor drags out a chair and
suddenly were in an office and they bring out a desk and were in a different
place I was going to show to James Lepine the director and the night before
that meeting I had this kind of nagging feeling that the idea just wasn't good
enough but suddenly I said wait a minute no instead of doing this empty bare
stage let me do a great big turning thing that has a multiple level thing on
it and each one of those locations had a little cubbyhole onstage that it existed
in and the set would turn and you would be play a space here or a space here a
space up here and a lot of the needs of the play were difficult and we're sort
of answered by that kind of a design. So, we had the sort of the fancy set for
George Kaufman's townhouse and the not so fancy tenement where Mosshart grew up
with a stairwell leading up to the roof all the laundry in the backyard.
And the theater here which curtain came in and out and we played lots of
different theater scenes here and there was a whole audience up in the balcony
sometimes, audience in the box.
One play that I worked on recently a few months ago was called An Octoroon, it was
at Soho Rep, Sarah Benson, the director, she and I both I think are interested in
this question of what is the nature of the event and we started talking about
it like maybe as in more of a performance-art context, as opposed to a
theater context and the reason for that was because we really wanted the audience
to not be able to sit back and like hold this piece at a distance.
Like as a historical piece, like this is not something you know we're living in a
post-racial society and we don't need to think about that anymore, we wanted it to
be like actually like- the audience like physically and viscerally affected by
the production. The wall that you see when you're coming in, 14 foot high wall
would fall towards the audience and when that happens like the gust of air that's
you know blowing out the audience is quite immense. Soho Rep is a tiny theatre.
It's got 70 seats and the audience was literally five feet away
from where the wall landed and it reveals two women dressed as 19th
century slaves knee-deep in a sea of cotton balls the next scene in the play
is that were in a plantation and I didn't want to depict any sort of
realistic architecture you know it wanted to be you know sort of abstract in a way.
When I'm dealing with sort of more realistic things where the
characters are that inhabit that space becomes very important and in that sense
you kind of have to put yourself into the mind of the character you know as
much as you can and it is I guess almost like acting or you know sort of thinking
through what would the character do, what would they choose, if it's a sort of a
talky play, where people are just sitting around that I need to provide
chairs and things for them to sit on and sort of focus areas around the set that
will draw an actor over here over, over here, to help with the staging and give the
director a reason to make a person walk from the side of the stage to the other
so it's not just a random movement but it's motivated in some way by something
that's existing on the set.
My aesthetic bent is definitely not realism. I feel like the reason that we
do theater is to be able to see something different and see something
differently.
This is for the dance piece to the Schubert music and the ideas that
we're going to make a forest of trees out of string.
I would say that my
favorite things to do are generally a little bit more abstract and sculptural.
My work with a lighting designer is very important to me, how the light lands on
the set, how it affects and shapes the set is so important to me. There's a lot
of just kind of physical back-and-forth that you know if I put this piece of
scenery here, you can put a light here, and you can put a speaker here and we
all have to play together in the same space.
And as video has become more and
more a part of theater, I'll have a lot of interplay with a video or projection
designer as well so that the set is a surface that will take projection well
and in the past year or so I've started doing the projections myself sometimes
because as the set designer I have a lot of opinion about what that should be
and sometimes it I would prefer just to do it myself and have it kind of be my vision.
The people who are building the set is really a collaboration with
me as well and all of those people need to have a sense of what I want as a
designer because I can't be there dealing with every little detail of all
of it I need to have a team of people who kind of understand my taste and
says it works almost like a symphony that everybody's doing their part and it
all comes together to create something that's coherent.
Here it is.
On the tomb.
So that's John's only copy of that, guard it and maybe once you're done get
it back to him but I think if you can get it up in some kind of online way for
us all to access it would be great.
Collaborating with the choreographers is very different from collaborating with
directors I find. choreographers obviously tend to think more spatially I
actually think choreographers and architects get along very well.
They think about space in a sculptural way. They're basically composing bodies
moving in space, sometimes directors are not necessarily, you know, understanding
space quite as strongly as a choreographer.
I think the biggest compliment I find when I'm working on a play and then
actors come and they discover the set and they start living on the set and if
they say to me like oh I feel really comfortable in this space or like I feel
inspired by the space like that's always like the best feeling.
There's a company I work with a lot in Philadelphia called Pig-Iron Theatre Company.
They create a performance as a group and so all of the
text is generally generated by the actors improvising in rehearsal and the
design is created alongside the piece.
But what's great about that is that as a
designer I'm there from the very beginning and potentially a design
proposal that I put out there at the beginning could could really you know
dictate the direction that the piece is taking.
I find it to be a very gratifying way to work.
It's me and the actors and the director in a room before we know
what the play is.
You know sometimes designing a show that isn't fully written yet can be a big
challenge when I when I was hired to do The Last Five Years, Jason Brown hadn't
finished writing the show. I had an outline and could I kind of generally
knew what it would be so I had to design a set for a show that wasn't fully
written yet it was similar on Sondheim on Sondheim and in both cases I think it
was exciting and they're actually two of my favorite sets that I've done.
In some ways I think not having the rigidness of a finished play was was
kind of liberating.
There's definitely like the fear at the beginning of every
project when you're staring at the kind of blank piece of paper or the empty
model box of the theater and you're just like I have no idea what I'm going to do.
It's a good kind of fear you know it's um feels like it's full of possibility?
My real nervousness is that sort of jump from the small scale to the big and
putting the people into it and you know it as much as I have some expertise
doing it, I've done it a lot of times, I'm nervous every time. You never know for
sure until you see the big thing if it what looked good this big is
really going to look good this big.
The budget is important to me obviously
because it affects what I can do if my concept for the set is sound is really
good then I can do the cheap version or the expensive version but obviously you
can't have a big grand expensive difficult idea if you don't have a big
grand expensive difficult budget but I feel like most things can be solved in
sort of a simple evocative way with scenery. If you're careful you can really
stretch the money and and that's the one secret I've found to trying to make a
budget bigger than it feels like it is.
I do always know the budget before I'm
starting the project but generally I don't tend to let it affect my
thinking too directly at the beginning unless it is very extreme, you know, like
unless the budget is literally like $200 and I know that I'm going to have to
come up with some kind of very simple idea or some kind of interesting
material that's going to be a single gesture.
Other than that, if it's just
kind of you know a normal budget which can range from you know ten thousand to
a hundred thousand dollars I would say my process would probably be about the same.
I feel like it's always best to to not be hampered by thoughts of the
budget at first, for the very you know just genesis of the idea, I try not to
think about it too much and then you know soon after that I'm trying to
figure out how to make it work.
Theater, I fear, is an inherently not very eco-friendly artform.
Sets tend to be
thrown away at the end of a production. I think everybody tries to be sustainable
about it and and I do try to save stuff and it was interesting working at
Lincoln Center recently almost all the props for the show were things that we
pulled out of storage either Lincoln Center had them in storage or some other
theater did and we borrowed them and use them but scenery inherently because it's
kind of a custom-made thing for a particular production used in a
particular way a lot of it gets thrown away and I always feel bad about it and
I don't know the answer to it. You would need enormous warehouse space to
try to save all that stuff.
The impermanence of set design versus
architecture: what that means is generally that after four weeks of
performance, the entire set tends to be thrown in a dumpster which always just
feels like such a tragedy. I have a hard time throwing anything away I think this
is maybe the curse of the designers like every little thing has like potentially
useful and like "Oh well that could come in handy someday," or you know, so I tend
to keep things and try to reuse things as much as possible.
Maybe this is also
coming from architecture where like I'm very interested in using real materials.
I'd rather use a real material than have a painted version of it.
It's kind of a
struggle sometimes because sometimes it's much more practical to fake it.
By the time an audience shows up I kind of know what I think of the thing, usually.
And you know and I'm interested what other people think of it too but I don't
like it even if everybody else loves it I'm kind of disgruntled about the project.
Yeah there been other times where I did a set maybe I did it quickly
or maybe the director pushed me to do something I didn't want to do and I'm
just not satisfied with it in the end and if I feel like if I really love it
even if everybody else hates it was still worth it to me.
[MUSIC]
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