The Five Reasons Your Students Will Love Set Design

One of the things I appreciate about the subject I teach is its varied subjects within it. However as we know, not all students think the same way as I. I thought you might appreciate the five reasons your students will love set design–or at least that’s my hope.

If you are teaching theater and have reluctant students, I’d suggest teaching them about set design.  I’ve yet to find a group of students who did not enjoy learning about it.

Many students love theater, but they are unwilling to perform and consequently they quit studying it and take another class instead.  The reason?  They just can’t find a place for themselves within it.  Technical theater is a wonderful place for inclusion!

The Five Reasons Your Students Will Love Set Design

Truthfully, I think teaching set design is crucial for a student’s studies in theater arts. Let’s face it–a set design can make or break a production. Understanding its value and encouraging your students to appreciate it too will not only enrich their learning, but make them a more rounded arts person.

Think about it.  The audience sits and looks at the set for the entire performance.  Sometimes the set doesn’t change.  That’s a loooong time to imagine the place.

I could wax poetic about my love for teaching set design.  I am that much of a cheerleader for it.  But here are some reasons your middle and high school students will love set design:

1.  It’s highly creative–The sky is the limit when one is learning about set design.
2.  It’s immediately gratifying–When you design a set and create a model of it (either with paper or through a set design software app.) you can watch your idea take shape right in front of you
3.  Themes and motifs can be explored effortlessly–your ELA teacher will appreciate that you teach these concepts to your students
4.  It’s a great way to learn cooperatively–If you have your students work in pair or teams, the design process is eye opening to them.  As in life, everyone has an idea. They should all be heard and incorporated into the design if at all possible.  Students learn to listen, adjust their opinions and consider others.
5.  Set design skills can carry over into other subjects such as math or social studies.  What a terrific way to apply what you learn.  Design a set, measuring, ratios, etc. come into use.  Researching a local such as France for a set design can be a super integration for a social studies or geography class.

The Challenges of Set Design

For Your Gifted Students

I used to challenge my students who needed something more difficult to design their set using a turntable in the center.  Wow, that’s a great challenge!  Not only is it tough to build, but will it work sufficiently?

Or what about a staircase?  Students quickly learn that designing a staircase to scale is much more complex than just label a rectangle a set of stairs.  Once a model is built the student sees the error of their measurements and that’s helpful, too.

How about a bridge?  Again, it’s easy to design but difficult to execute.

A Little Trivia Break

• Did you know Judy Dench wanted to be a set designer when she was young?
• Or that Maurice Sendak (author of Where the Wild Things Are) became a set designer after his career as an author? (Me neither!)
• How about the fact that real-life historical locations provided inspiration for the Hamilton musical set design? While the set isn’t literal, it draws inspiration from actual places. “One of the cool things about Hamilton is almost every single location is one that you can research and find actual visual support for, whether it’s on the internet or in history books, or if the actual location still exists,” says David Korins, the set designer. “We did a lot of research in my office, getting everything from what the Schuyler Home actually looked like to what it looked like in New York City in 1781 and 1776. And we put it all up on a big huge board on a wall in my office, and we picked and chose.”
• If you want more information about the history of set design, check out this blog post, Past Present and Future Set Design 

Teaching students that “less is more” can be easily demonstrated through set design.  In the photo above, you see a simple set from the 2018 revival of Carousel.  It contains a cyclorama with a cloudy night sky projected upon it and four miniature sail boats are part of the ground row.  The rest of the set is wood pallets. Students understand this concept that’s why it’s one of the five reasons students love set design.  Isn’t it effective? If you are need advice concerning selecting a production, check out this blog post: Critical Steps in Selecting a Play or Musical: Budget & Royalties

Permit me to brag a little

This is Brandon Davis.  He was a student of mine when he was in middle school.  He’s really made a great name for himself as a set designer.  When I had Brandon in my drama class in sixth grade, he was quiet, creative and loved theater.  You can see his work below and  at www.brandonptdavis.com

If you aren’t aware, I have a store with Teacherspayteachers.com.  In it, I sell drama education resources. In this particular case, let’s discuss my set design unit.

There are two–one for middle school and another a bundle of technical theater units  for high school.

The Five Reasons Your Students Will Love Set Design

Here is my middle school design unit description:

During this eight-day unit over set design students learn about the history of set design, famous designers, develop a critical eye about what makes up an award- winning set design, create a ground plan for a fairy tale story of their choosing and draw a rendering. If you’d like a free lesson concerning set design, click here. Set Design, the Rendering

Here’s a added benefit–the students must work with ratios and measuring. (Hello math class!) The first two assignments are completed individually, but then the fun begins! The students are paired up to create a model working together towards the goal. There is even room for parents to celebrate the end of the unit with your students.

Included in the unit:

• An overview of the unit for the teacher
• Rationale for teaching design
• History of scenic design
• Set designer’s responsibilities
• Teacher’s Script–what I say and how I say it!
• Warm-up for day one
• Procedures for each day (8)
• Lecture notes including links
• Information about the message color conveys
• Rendering examples
• Stage curtain sheets for rendering–one vertical, one horizontal
• Step-by-step directions for model building including photo examples
• Cheat sheet for various set pieces
• Assignment sheet for each step of the design process
• Exit slip prompts for 4 days
• Grade sheet EDITABLE in a separate folder
• Source page

High School Set Design and Others

As you would expect, my high school unit is more challenging.  It includes studying three styles of theater–modernism, expressionism, surrealism.  After reading a play of their choosing, the students select one style and design the set for that production.   They build a model of their design or use software to design it in three dimensions.

Additionally if you want to take this idea even further, I have a theater artist biography and one pager assignment available. I  have several planned, but for now I can offer you Ming Cho Lee.

If you are looking for advice a production’s design, check out this blog post: Critical Steps in Producing a Play or Musical: Set Design

In particular, I appreciate this quote from  George C. Wolfe, playwright and director of Angels in America: Millenium Approaches who said:

“I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it’s a chance for me as a director to figure out what I’m thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated.”

I hope I’ve convinced you to teach design to your students.  Maybe your students will become a set designer as mine did!

If you want more advice concerning set design, check out: Critical Steps in Producing a Play or Musical: Set Design

Need something for a substitute?  Check out Exploring Theater Professions Video and Class Discussion Lesson.

What technical theater lessons have your students enjoyed learning?  I’d love to know.  Contact me at DhcBaldwin@gmail.com