Open Forum

Exploring the World of the Play in Stagecraft Class

In my teaching career I wanted to inspire my stagecraft students to really engage in the work.  It might be the same for many of you, but my stagecraft classes included a good number of theatre student technicians, but many were students who were completely unfamiliar with theatre who chose to take the class as an elective.  Working to find a way to really engage these students was something of a challenge.  It was then I decided to inspire these kids to become a part of the creative process.  In my program,  stagecraft classes primarily supported the extracurricular theatre program by working to build the set and props, work on costumes, lighting and sound.   In order to engage my students more fully in the process I decided to dedicate a significant amount of time to a research project exploring the world of the play.  After studying the play we were going to be working on, we delved into a little dramaturgy in order to really research the world of the play as it related to the specific design elements (scenic, costume, lighting and sound).  

Kids selected which design element they wanted to research and dig deeper into finding out what influenced the world of the play.  Many selected scenic and costume research and a few took on lighting and sound.   They worked together to research the time period, place, fashion, politics, pop culture, etc.  All of the elements that are a part of dramaturgy that might influence production design choices.   Each group then prepared a full slide show presentation featuring images from buildings and architecture, furniture, props, fashion magazines, vintage photos of people and places, visual art, colors, music pieces, incidental and ambient sounds.   

Following these presentations, I shared my vision for the production.   Then we went through each of the design presentation images to select those we felt were the best representation of this vision.  It was a wonderfully collaborative experience and each of the students felt they had contributed in a significant way to what we would work to create together.   Seeing their ideas and the creativity involved in bring it all together as we worked to design the set, costumes, lighting and sound was very fulfilling.  They were able to see specifically how their ideas worked to create a design idea.  And for those kids who were completely new to theatre, they were overwhelmed by the amount of work that goes into creating a production design.  

As a way for them to see their work as part of the process, we put together large display boards featuring their research and  we put them up in the foyer outside of the theatre so folks could see them when they came to the show.  Patrons could see our "process" as we worked to create the design elements of the production.  It also allowed the audience to see the research and collaboration that took place as we worked to mount the production.   

But most importantly these kids felt such a sense of accomplishment being an integral part of the production process.   It was an unexpected way of building my stagecraft program.  Students wanted to return and take the class again.  It was then that we began offering Stagecraft 1, 2, and 3 for students who wanted to engage more fully and work on developing their skills.  

Included here is an article about Dramaturgy to help get you started. https://schooltheatre.org/dramaturgy-101/