Summary for technical theatre

Despite of the multiple aspects of the theater tech, I have realized several “core” of a good technical theatre.

After watching the Hamlets and other productions, I found that you can have different vision so different designs will work for different productions. However, there is something does not change, which I see as a key point to make designs work—contrast. Light and dark, cool and warm, black and white, wealth and poverty. The contrast between elements always help the designer to establish settings effectively. If you have ordinary people on the stage dress in one color, you will have the protagonist dresses another color; if you have the surrounding dark, you will light up the character’s face; if you have a slow music at a lovely scene, you will have strong music on a ghost scene later. 

Another thing I consider as another key point do set up good theatre techs is the symbolism. Theatre tech enhance the scene while symbolism works the same way. Putting some design like heights on the stage may suggest the relationship between characters. Or using some specific color of lighting can help to set up an atmosphere if there is a certain character relates to the color previously. Having specific properties on the stage, such like tags or something relates to the plot. All the good technical theatre designs I have seen have both contrast and symbolism elements.

For the technical theatre aspects, I will start with lighting. The lighting for visibility is to help audience to see what needs to be seen. Motivated light is used to envision a scene. And the lights are not necessary visible for audience, they could be place out of the stage. Theoretically, a good lighting helps audience see things clearly, suggests the physical background(time of the day, etc), draws attention for certain characters. Practically, lighting designers need to think about the shape of the stage and where are the shadows. And the lighting positions can create different effects. Furthermore, the lighting designers need to draw a lighting plot before put on the instruments. The lighting plot is the instruction of how the designer want the instruments been placed, it tells the direction of the light, color of the light, and position of the light.

The sound effect and music, the technical theatre aspect that is commonly used and ignored by audience who enjoys visual entertainment. Jenna introduced us how the Ancient Greek and Roman people use sound effects for their theatre. For modern theatre, she introduced Foley as one of the oldest modern sound instrument for movie and theatre. People started to use recorded sound in the beginning of the 20th century. She introduced music theatre as well. Music theatre is the theatre form that uses music throughout the whole play to tell the story.

For costume and makeup, despite of the use of masks in ancient theatre, they had not become an important thing in theater until 18th century. Costumes can make a human actor into an animal, and they can set up the relationship between characters as well. Bright colors are typically used for upper class characters while common colors like brown and grey suggesting ordinary characters. Makeups can help the designers to change the appearance of the performers into the “ideal characters”. Makeups and costumes need to be agree with the time period of the plot and the personality of the characters.

The stage design or the scenic design ask the designer to build up a suitable stage for the play of scene. In scenic design, one skill I learned is to dividing stage using physical design. For example, adding heights on the stage or painting patterns on the ground to separate different group on the stage always work. We have not have experience to design a stage practically but there are things might be problems for an actual design—the cost, the crew size, the vision of the director. All the them will bother the stage designer.

I believe all these technical theatre knowledge will help me get better when I try to do a director’s job: think in different aspects so I won’t be hampered by unpractical thoughts.