HUM110CL Module 7 AVP A Transcript
Title Page
Welcome to this presentation on the creative process of traditional theatre—how to mount a play.
Slide 2
Title: Director
Slide content:
• Central artist of theatre
• Decides the theme or controlling vision of a play
Narrator: A play is a collaborative art, but it begins with the central artist, the director, who will be the final decision-maker. A director must start with a script. Once a playwright writes a script, in most cases, unless the script is a work-in-progress, the playwright has no communication on the producing of this script. After the director chooses a script (and sometimes, the directors don’t have the luxury of choosing; the script choice is decided by the producer), she must begin a process of analyzing the script.
The director must decide the central image or theme or controlling vision of the play. The controlling vision helps to create a unified production and give all of the theatrical designers a focal point. For example, creating a controlling vision for the Shakespeare play Macbeth, the director tries to summarize the plot line into a visual image.
Slide 3
Title: Controlling Vision of Macbeth
Slide content:
• An innocent king is enwrapped in a spider’s web of deceits, woven by Lady Macbeth.
Narrator: Macbeth is a dark story about the Macbeths, a politically ambitious couple who poison a king, a guest to their castle, to gain his lands. Lady Macbeth is the main culprit of the poisoning. A director might feel that this play is a tale about an innocent king caught in a spider web of deceit, and Lady Macbeth is the spider who wove the web waiting to “eat” her struggling victim. This is a strong visual statement that gives a central idea or theme to all of the different theatrical artists a director will have to unite to create this play. The set designer might interweave web-like qualities in his setting. A costume designer might dress Lady Macbeth in colors of a spider or fabrics that give a “hairy” like quality reminiscent of a spider. An actress might fashion her character with quick nimble movements that a spider might make. But this example is just one possible vision a director might take with Macbeth. The controlling vision the director determines will be the guiding idea to shape the play.
Slide 4
Slide content:
• Set designer
– Stage
– Decoration
– Furniture
• Scenic designer
– Create a rendering or
a model of the set
– Provides visual picture
of the stage
Picture of a set design
Narrator: Once the director decides the theme, or the intent, or the slant of this play, she must assemble her designers and cast. Again, theatre is a collaborative art. The set designer’s job is to create all of the scenic elements of a play. This includes the stage, the decoration, and the furniture for the play. After conferring with the director about theme and physical needs of the script, the scene designer will design a set based on the controlling vision by the director, the physical demands of the script, limitations of the stage, and the scenic designer’s own creative ideas.
Once the director approves of the scenic designer’s plan, the scenic designer will create either a rendering of a set or a model. The model or rendering gives the director and actors a visual picture of the stage setting they will be working with. Here are examples of a stage design rendering and a stage model.
Slide 5
Title: Proscenium Space
Slide content:
Picture of a proscenium arch
Narrator: Sometimes, the director has a choice about what kind of staging space to use in regards to the physical relationship between the performer and the audience. A proscenium space has a large arch that the actors appear within which nicely frames the action. The audience sits on one side of the proscenium arch, and the actors perform on the other side. The proscenium stage lends itself to big cast shows and those with big scenery, because the audience’s view won’t be blocked. Also, the proscenium arch nicely “frames” the action and makes pretty pictures. However, it is the least intimate of all of the spaces.
Slide 6
Title: Arena or In-the-Round
Slide content:
Picture of a an arena
Narrator: Another kind of space is the arena or in-the-round stage space. This is a stage space where the audience sits around the action of all four sides. Actors must enter and exit through the audience. This is the most intimate of the theatrical spaces. The director must be careful in the staging of the action so as not to block the views of the audience. The scenic designer must be careful not to have large set pieces or furniture that also blocks the action.
Slide 7
Title: Thrust or Three-Sided
Slide content:
Picture of a thrust stage
Narrator: A hybrid of these two stage arrangements is the thrust or three-sided stage. This is the stage arrangement that both Sophocles and Shakespeare wrote for. The audience sits on three sides of the action. There is an arch of sorts, but the action is played, for the most part, into the audience and away from the arch. Within and behind the arch, the director can place many supporting performers, and the scenic designer can use big sets. The actors coming forward into the audience adds some of the intimacy of the arena stage.
Slide 8
Title: Modern use of Theatrical Spaces
Slide content:
• Peter Brook’s—
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Narrator: Nowadays, traditional stage formations like these three are sometimes abandoned for more creative use of an entire theatre. Here is a picture of a very famous production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream by Peter Brook. In this production, the characters sometimes appeared on trapezes, flying above the audience and playing some of Shakespeare’s scenes in the rafters of the theatre.
Modern productions tend to make the theatre space fit the production.
Slide 9
Title: Cirque du Soleil
Slide content:
• “KÀ”
• “O”
Narrator: Some of the most innovative set designs in today’s theatre come from the Cirque Du Soleil productions in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil offers performances of a circus-like nature with incredible acrobatic performers creating theatre around a story scenario. In a recent production of “KA”, a hydraulic lift is used for the stage. At times during the production, this stage lift first begins to rotate upside down with the actors still performing on it, who have to somehow grip the stage with either their hands or feet to carry out the scene. Meanwhile, as the stage continues to move now completely upside down, another batch of performers, hanging on to the other side of the hydraulic stage will appear on the new side of the stage and continue the action of the first group creating an astounding theatrical experience.
In “O” another Cirque du Soleil show performed in Las Vegas, pools of water appear and disappear throughout the show. Suddenly, an actor will make a dive into a pool of water that a minute ago, seemed like a flat floor. This is an incredible feat of stage design of the 21st century.
Search the web for a promo for “O” and you will get a good feel for the mastery of this set design.
Slide 10
End of presentation