The document discusses principles of theater design. It outlines that a theater space should foster an intimate connection between performers and audience. The audience should be clustered around the performers within sightlines. Additionally, the space should encourage a sense of community and excitement through rich colors and distinct seating areas. Scenic design and scenic painting techniques are also discussed, noting they must replicate images on a large scale and consider the needs of the script. Case studies provide examples of the Irene Diamond Stage, The Linney theater, and Alice Griffin Jewel Box Opera Theater at the Signature Center designed by Frank Gehry. Production designs for The Piano Lesson and Better Don't Talk are also summarized.

1. THEATER DESIGN
Presented by Nisha Ahmed
CMS 28454

2. THEATER DESIGN
 Theatre design is the art and science of
creating auditoriums for live performance.
 A theatre is fundamentally different from a
cinema or any auditorium meant only for
presentation, because it’s a space where
performers and audience create the
performance together, actively exchanging
attention and energy. A successful theatre
supports and enhances this exchange.

3. PRINCIPLES OF THEATER DESIGN
 Clearly, more is involved in designing a
successful theatre than just providing good
sightlines and acoustics. We’ve outlined what
we see as four basic principles of good
theatre design.

4. PRINCIPLES OF THEATER DESIGNING
 The audience must feel closely linked with the
performers and each other.
 The audience should be clustered around the
performers, within the limits of good sightlines. A
good design places spectators where they can
connect intimately to the performance, and where
they can see each other respond to it. The auditorium
must be scaled to sustain and enhance the
performance. There is no live performance without
the performer. Every detail in the design of the
auditorium must support (not dwarf) the performer.

5. PRINCIPLES OF THEATER DESIGN
 a sense of excitement and community should
be encouraged.
 Audiences often see spaces with dark
finishes, uniform and undifferentiated
seating, and high unlit ceilings as unpleasant
or even depressing. Rich colors and distinct
seating areas offer more layers to the
experience, creating dynamic spaces that
encourage an active response from the
audience.

6. SCENIC DESIGN

7. SCENIC DESIGN
 Scenic design (also known as stage design, set
design or production design) is the creation of
theatrical, as well as film or television scenery.
 The 'stage picture' is the 'look' or physical
appearance of the stage for a play, whether in
rehearsal or performance.
 It reflects the way that the stage is composed
artistically in regard to props, actors, shapes and
colors.
 The stage picture should express good principles of
design and use of space.
 It should be visually appealing for the audience or
should express the show's concept.

8. SCENIC PAINTAING
 Theatrical scenic painting is a wide-ranging craft,
encompassing virtually the entire scope of painting
techniques and often reaching far beyond.
 To be a well-rounded scenic artist, one must have
experience in landscape painting, trompe l'oeil,
portraiture, and faux finishing, to be versatile in many
different media (such as acrylic-, oil-, and tempera-
based paint), and be an accomplished gilder,
plasterer, and sculptor.
 However, the techniques of the scene painter are
different than traditional studio artists in many
respects. The scene painter replicates an image on a
very large scale. This is achieved with specialized
knowledge that isn't taught in artist studios. In
addition one is often expected to make the finished
product fire-proof, and to work quickly and within a
tight budget.

9. THE SCRIPT
 The content and style of the collaborative
process will be strongly shaped by the needs of
the individual script.
 Many productions are so specifically defined by
the author, that to alter that reality would be to
alter the meaning of the play.
 As you will see over time, some plays will need
more discussion than others.

10. CASE STUDY 1
 Signature Center
 Location
 42 Street New York.
 Designer: Frak Ghery
 The Center is comprised of three unique theatre
spaces, two studios, a dynamic, shared lobby
with a café, bookshop, and concierge desk, and
administrative offices that span 70,000
contiguous square feet in MiMArank Ghery

11. IRENE DIAMOND STAGE
The Irene Diamond Stage evokes a
heightened sense of drama even before
the lights come up.
A straight rake of seating rises from the
stage edge and is contained within
plywood walls that give the space a
subtle architectural expression. The
shaped plywood panels, which evoke the
texture of cracked earth, wrap around the
walls and will be painted to fade to black
as they approach the stage, creating a
transition from the architectural space of
the room to the scenic space of the play.
A single, grand doorway will connect this
theatre to the lobby. The ceremonious
closing of this door will indicate that the
play is about to begin.

12. IRENE DIAMND STAGE

13. THE LINNEY
The 191-seat flexible Linney Theatre
offers our playwrights complete freedom
to explore the relationship between
audiences and performers.
The courtyard form, which has a long
history in the development of theatre,
makes this space distinct from the
Center's other two spaces. This theatre
can be used in an end stage format, as a
modified thrust stage, a runway, a flat
floor format, and many more
configurations. If a writer can imagine it,
they can create it in The Linney. Each
configuration has a second level gallery
that seats patrons in a single row
overlooking the stage, which encourages
the performers to activate and engage
with the entire space.

14. LINNEY COURTYAD THEATER

15. ALICE GRIFON JEWEL BOX OPERA THEATER
Grand opera house design and Off-Broadway intimacy
elegantly combine in the 191-seat Alice Griffin Jewel Box
Theatre.
The Griffin is truly a one-of-a-kind performance venue with
an inherent theatricality and dynamism. Upon walking into
the theatre, patrons will gaze up at the crafted plywood
panels that frame the proscenium, wrap around the balcony
front, and create a ceiling under the lighting bridges above
the audience. Each wood panel will be stained a deep
chocolate brown that will fade to black as the lights come
down on the audience. The panels are also acoustically
engineered to fill the house with full, clear, and rich sound.
Modeled after a miniature opera house, The Griffin features
boxes so close to the stage audience members can almost
reach out and touch the actors. Whether in the orchestra or
in the balcony, The Griffin immerses its audience in the
world of the play.

16. JEWEL BOX THEATER

17. JEWEL BOX OPERA THEATER

18. SCENIC DESIGN CASE STUDY
Designer Neil Patel
Signature returns to the
rich body of work of its
2006/07 Playwright-in-
Residence August Wilson
with a new production of
his Pulitzer Prize-winning
The Piano Lesson. In
Pittsburgh’s Hill District in
1936, the Charles family
battle their surroundings
and each other over their
shared legacy -- an
antique piano.

19. THE PIANO LESSON

20. THE PIANO LESSON

21. BETTER DON’T TALK
 A One woman show, by
and performed by Naava
Piatka, about her mother
and star of the Yiddish
Theatre and Broadway,
Chayela Rosenthal.
Presented by The New
York State Theatre
Institute in the fall of
2006. Scenery Design is
by Richard Finkelstein.
Costumes by Robert
Anton, and Lighting
Design John McLaine

22. THE DEPICTIONS ON THE DROP ARE FROM REAL ARTIFACTS FROM THE STORY. THESE
WOULD ILLUMINATE AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME. THE PAPER SCRAP HIGHLIGHTED IN
THE BACKGROUND IS FROM A POSTER FOR ONE OF CHAYELE'S GREAT STAGE
PRODUCTIONS AS NAAVA RECOUNTS THAT MOMENT IN HER MOTHER'S HISTORY. A
RELATIONSHIP LIVES BETWEEN MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, AND IS REFLECTED NOT
ONLY IN THE SCRIPT, BUT THROUGH SCENERY AND LIGHTING AS WELL.

23. THE SETTING AS IT APPEARS ON STAGE AS THE AUDIENCE
ENTERS. NOTE FROM THE LAST PHOTO ON THIS PAGE HOW
CLOSE WE CAME TO THE INITIAL CONCEPTUAL RENDERING.

24. EMPHASIZING ON DROP IMAGES

25. THANK YOU