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Thinking Like A Set Designer

Before we begin to break down the process, tools, and techniques that a scenic designer uses when creating their designs, it is important to get inside of their heads. What are they considering when they read the script? When they go to meet with the director or playwright for the first time? What about when they sit down to sketch out ideas for the first time? Or as they make decisions on the number of set pieces, their colors, textures, shapes, etc.?

Video Video Tips

Check out this Ted talk featuring one of the foremost Broadway set designers, David Korins, as he discusses ways to visualize and create spaces that tell a story.

David is a Tony Award nominee and Emmy award winner who is well known for theatre shows like Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Beetlejuice, as well as for live event designs for events such as the Oscars, Grease: Live, Lady Gaga, and Bruno Mars.

3 ways to create a space that moves you, from a Broadway set designer Links to an external site.David Korins TED talk (Length 10:36) from TEDxBroadway (2018).

Think The Guiding Questions of a Set Designer

The key information to take away here is that while technique and skill as a designer are important, the idea and the intention behind what they are creating on-stage must be equally important. A misaligned or misdirected core idea can often be more damaging to the design than a misaligned seam in a wall.

As a result, it is important for the set designer to ask themselves questions like the following when they read the play:

  • What is this story about? What are the major themes, motifs, parallels, or symbolism that the playwright has woven into their writing?
  • Why are we (the theatre, the creative team, the playwright, etc.) telling this story?
  • What do you want the audience to take away from this story? To feel emotionally when they view it? Does that change over the course of the story?
  • What might the world of the play look like? Does it need to be grounded in reality? Or can it be more of an emotional landscape rather than a definitive location?
  • What physical objects does the story need to have in order to be able to tell it?
  • What commentary can the space give to the audience about the characters who exist in it?

The answers or further questions they come up with from these self-questions can become a great starting point for their conversations with the director, playwright, and fellow designers.