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The Arts: Drama

About this guide

Stagecraft deals with the technical aspects of theatrical production. There are many aspects of stagecraft including scenic design, stage machinery, lighting, sound, costume design, and makeup. This guide provides links to informative sources to assist you with your exploration of these aspects of stagecraft.

Notetaking

One effective strategy for improving retention is note taking – not just because you’ll have a written record to refer to in the future, but also because the actual act of taking notes can help cement concepts in your mind. There is no single way of taking notes.  Browse these resources to find what suits you.

Tips on how to organise the information you've read into a useful set of notes State Library of Victoria - Ergo

Once you've read this, watch the Cornell Method video. This is an excellent strategy.

Note-taking (University of Melbourne)

Creating references

Referencing or citing your sources is an important part of academic writing and research. It lets you acknowledge the ideas or words of others and helps avoid plagiarism.

Using these Reference Generator tools makes the task much easier. You have two options to create your references. Both use APA, so you can include citations from both. Both also provide in-text citations.

 

SLASA Online Referencing Generator     

 

Search terms

Useful search terms are:

  • stagecraft
  • theatrical production
  • theater

Drama online

Drama Online Logo

High-quality online research tool for drama and literature students and teachers. It combines exclusively available playtext content and scholarly publications with filmed live performances, film adaptations, and audio plays.

User name: CCV  password: Theatre

 

Click here for help

Sets

Set Design

Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, set design or production design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds. Scenic designers design sets and scenery that aim to immerse the viewer in the production.

Unleash your creativity to design a set using this program. Production concept, styles, common tricks used when designing sets, script analysis, and how to work with the director and other designers is explored. Besides a written test, everything needed to design and build a model set is included in this program.

Company Three explore the use of multimedia in their production Brainstorm. Find out how you can incorporate mobile technology and multimedia into your performance.

Theatrical set designer Derek McLane 80 shows how his work progresses — from initial sketches on a yellow legal pad through the musicals finished sets — and discusses some of his surprising, diverse sources of inspiration. (http://www.harvardmagazine.com)

Lighting

Lighting Design

A theatre lighting designer (or LD) works with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create the lighting, atmosphere, and time of day for the production in response to the text, while keeping in mind issues of visibility, safety, and cost. The LD also works closely with the stage manager or show control programming, if show control systems are used in that production. 

Watch a clip from the Practical Technical Theater program "Lighting Design". Reasons to use stage lighting, types of lighting instruments, color theory, and special effects are all covered in the early part of the program. Then a lighting design for a small production is analyzed, and a design for a large professional theater is discussed and analyzed. The final project is to read and analyze the lighting for a script, and then do cue sheet, hanging plot, instrument schedule, patching schedule, and channel hook-up sheets.

Stagecraft

Drama medium  

GCSE Drama Medium BBC Bitesize

There's a lot to think about when you're planning to stage a drama. You'll need to combine a range of elements that are appropriate to your project, such as costume, language, sound and music.

Theatre design  GCSE Theatre design - BBC Bitesize

The design of the set, lighting, music, sound and costumes, and the way digital technology is used all contribute to the audience's experience. There are a range of roles within theatre design.

 

Props

Props

A property, commonly shortened to prop (plural: props), is an object used on stage or on screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct from the actors, scenery, costumes and electrical equipment.

Theatre technologies

Technical Director of the Avon Theatre describes some of the joys and challenges of working in a repertory theatre company with such technically heavy productions such as The Grapes of Wrath and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Makeup

Make-UpTheatrical makeup refers to makeup that is used to assist in creating the appearance of the characters that actors portray during a theater production.

The makeup gallery Thousands of images from professional make-up artists for television and film.

Publicity

Publicity

Publicity is the movement of information with the effect of increasing public awareness of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.