{"id":6686,"date":"2016-12-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/2016\/12\/setting-the-scene\/"},"modified":"2016-12-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T00:00:00","slug":"setting-the-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/setting-the-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting the Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis class makes my brain work differently!\u201d \u2014Elena Lindstrom \u201917\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIf the set is elegant and well done, it\u2019s easier to understand the play.\u201d With those words, theater professor Megan Reilly launched a Fundamentals of Scenography class early in the semester. The course, taken by theater majors and non-majors alike, is an introduction to the art and process of developing design for performance.<\/p>\n

Throughout the semester her half dozen students studied elements of design, and worked on set models as well as lighting plans and costumes. Reilly\u2019s hope, she says, is that they come away from the class with \u201cthe ability to conceive of theatrical spaces in ways that support texts.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means students analyzing photos they like, choosing fabric swatches (\u201cyes, you can touch them all you want!\u201d) to convey a wealthy older woman with poor taste or an impoverished Victorian scholar, and building 1\/8-scale models of a set design for a fairy tale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis class makes my brain work differently!\u201d says theater major Elena Lindstrom \u201917<\/strong> (Arlington Heights, Ill.), referring to activities such as making color wheels, drawing costume designs, and using various shapes to create pictures of stages. Lindstrom took the course so she could better understand the design aspects of theater as she creates and directs a performance for her capstone project. Though she has worked on productions before, says Lindstrom, \u201cI feel like I\u2019m learning in a totally new way about all the elements of a show and the importance of communication among the director and designers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reilly compares scenographers to detectives or magpies, charged with \u201cdiscovering a world from the play\u2019s text. Their research can take them from museums to thrift shops, she says, adding that \u201cno experience is ever wasted\u201d for those creating the look of a play. Her methods seem to be working. Says first year student Charlotte Houghton<\/strong> (Washington, D.C), \u201cThis class had pushed me to become more creative and aware of design decisions and why I\u2019m making them\u2026to come up with new and thoughtful ideas and really consider how best to illustrate a text to make it meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their final project, the students were asked to create one-quarter scale model set designs for the Shakespearean drama Macbeth, <\/em>as well as two full-color costume renderings, a lighting design, and a concept statement. Meanwhile, most members of the class, including Reilly, were also immersed in the school\u2019s production of the musical Urinetown<\/em>, with Reilly designing the lighting with help from Houghton and others.<\/p>\n

By semester\u2019s end, the students have a good overview of designing for theater, says Reilly, though she adds that \u201cin a perfect world I\u2019d love to have this class be a prerequisite for a scene design course in which they translate their designs into actual sets.\u201d And of course she\u2019d like to see some of those same faces in the lighting design course she\u2019s teaching next semester.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, six Macalester students have been taught, says Lindstrom, \u201cto understand how to make powerful performances,\u201d a perspective they can appreciate, she points out, \u201cnot only as theatre-makers but as audience members.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A theater class explores the design elements of putting on a production.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-6686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-student-life","tag-theatre-and-dance","mediatype-articles","collections-newsboxstory"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"flickr_photoset_id":"72157677458545805","story_title":"Setting the Scene","story_caption":"A theater class explores the design elements of putting on a production."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30551,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686\/revisions\/30551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}