THEA 325
A Room that Pretends to be Another Room: Scenography in Theory and Practice
Last Offered Spring 2014
Division I
This course is not offered in the current catalog

How have designers and directors thought about theatrical space? How successfully have their theories aligned with their practice? How are the ideas of the great European and American scenographers being re-imagined, reused, or abused on today’s stages? In this tutorial we will take a hybrid approach to the study of scenography, blending theoretical, historical, and critical readings about stage design with a studio component that focuses on formulating an artistic response to those ideas. Our study of scenography will span a hundred years from Robert Edmund Jones to Nature Theater of Oklahoma, examining the ideas of Josef Svoboda, Bertolt Brecht and Caspar Neher, Mielziner, Lee, and Conklin; Wilson, Foreman, and The Wooster Group; and contemporary New York experimental theater. Assignments will alternate between writing short papers and creating preliminary scenic designs; both done in response to the designers or periods being examined in the readings. Introductory drawing and/or some scale model-making experience would be useful, but is not absolutely required.