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Lighting the Set : Techniques and Effects

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The basics of Lighting Once the sets have been designed and built and are onstage, the next step is the light- ing. Often this is one area where little time is spent to create the final mood. Months may have been devoted to building the set, but the lighting is often an afterthought and the process rushed through. Lighting is like the paint that is applied to a new car off the assembly line. No one wants a vehicle that isn’t finished (without paint), and that “paint” is the signature that completes the vehicle. You are essentially doing the same thing when lighting your set.You are adding the last coat of paint to the scene and creating the final product. Lighting not only illuminates the set but also allows you to create a mood, time, setting, and look for your environment. Carefully placed lighting units will highlight certain aspects of your set, and no lighting in other places will hide defects. Once again, your goal is not just to turn on a light so that the audience may see t...
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Scenic Design and it's components

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Introduction The most attractive thing about technical theatre is that we are constantly creating something out of nothing. When you begin, there is a dark, empty stage and an idea. Then you build it, light it, and they come. They watch the show, they leave, and you take it all down. The stage is bare, the lights are off, and the circle of life continues. How to get from empty stage to empty stage is what this book is about.Still, even if you read this book cover to cover (which you will) and memorize every term and concept (you might), you still will need to practice the craft (not that kind of craft!). Practice makes perfect, and although nothing is perfect, through experience you will get better. Face it, we never stop learning. And if we ever do, we have stopped living. Technology might change the way we do things, but it is still the knowledge that creates the craft, not the tools. The tools are important and necessary, but it is the use of these tools that will take y...
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Role of Scenographer in a Play

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Scenography —the creation of the stage space—does not exist as a self- contained art work. Even though the scenographer may have studied fine art and be by instinct a painter or a sculptor, scenography is much more than a background painting for the performers, as has often been used in dance. Scenography is always incomplete until the performer steps into the playing space and engages with the audience. Moreover, scenography is the joint statement of the director and the visual artist of their view of the play, opera or dance that is being presented to the audience as a united piece of work. Like any collaboration the end result is only ever as good as the working relationship, and like any other medium it is sometimes more successful than at other times. The scenographer has a responsibility to do all that is possible to achieve the best understanding of the delicate and complicated process of making a theatre work, involving the director, performers, other visual artists and the tec...
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Fundamentals of Play Direction

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Director's Function   Defining the duties, responsibilities, and required knowledge of a play di- rector would give the uninitiated some indication of the director's function, but would still be limited since-unlike the playwright, designers, and ac- tors-the director's contribution remains intangible and not easily perceived. The complete ignorance of most people about the function of directors is not perhaps surprising. Even in music, the presence of the director's counterpart- the conductor of an orchestra-is seen and felt, but not so the director: Once the play is in performance it is there for what one sees, hears, and feels. The thought, creative efforts, and technical controls that have gone into the behind-the-scene workings rightly should be nonintrusive. Of course, we must recognize that the new vision a director may bring to a work, or the use of a play as a vehicle for his own creative input, definitely establishes the director's presence, however ineffa...
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Structure of an Actor's Work : The dialectical structure of the actor’s interpretation of a role

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The will The fundamental concept for the actor is not the ‘being’ of the character, but the ‘will’. One should not ask ‘who is this?’, but rather ‘what does he want?’ The first question can lead to the formation of static pools of emotion, while the second is essentially dynamic, dialectical, conflictual, and consequently theatrical. But the will chosen by the actor cannot be arbitrary – on the contrary, it must be the concretion of an idea, the translation of this idea or thesis into terms of will. The will is not the idea, it is the concretion of the idea. It is not enough to want to be happy in an abstract way, we must want the particular thing that will make us happy. It is not enough to want ‘power and glory’ in general, we must concretely want to kill King Duncan in very concrete and objectified circumstances. From which we can derive the following formulation: idea = concrete will (in particular, specific circumstances). The counter-will No emotion is pur...
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The Structure of an Actor's Work : An Introduction

The primacy of emotion In 1956, at a very tender age, I started working at the Arena Theatre of São Paulo, of which I was the artistic director until I had to leave Brazil in 1971. At this time, the Brazilian theatre was completely dominated by Italian directors, who used to impose pre-established forms on every play performed. On stage we used to hear Portuguese spoken with an Italian accent. To fight against this, in concert with the actors, we created an Acting Laboratory in which we set about a methodical study of the works of Stanislavski. Our first (and only!) guiding precept, at that time, was that emotion took precedence over all else and should be given a free rein to shape the final form of the actor’s interpretation of a role. Muscular exercises The actors relax all the muscles in their bodies and focus their attention on each individual muscle. Then they take a few steps, bend down and pick up an object (anything), doing the whole thing very slowly and trying to feel and re...
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Structure of Playwriting

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Playwriting is the art of writing a script for a play or drama. The profession of playwriting has been around for centuries, although it was more popular during some eras. Successful playwriting depends not only on dialogue but on intelligent plotting, credible characterization, and the ability to develop a theme. The pleasures of writing a drama can be significant. If you are looking for a profession in playwriting, wish to level up your game & expand your horizons, then keep reading because we will cover types of playwriting, famous playwrights who took playwriting to next level, how it is different from any other type of writing, and more!  Structure of a Play  THE POINT OF ATTACK AND THE INCITING INCIDENT Keeping in mind that every entrance and every exit can constitute an action, you'll be astounded to discover the large number and great variety of actions found in successful plays. Once you've written your long list of actions, you'll also...
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