Theatre and set design

The scope of this course is to provide the students with the basic geometrical principals on the planning and management of those theatrical scenes characterized by the stage’s architecture and illusion spaces’ perspective effects.

Theatrical scenography is made of several complex phases aiming at recreating an intended illusory effect sketched first by the scenographer. The sketch is made in perspective and it consists in a painting containing all the instructions needed for its exact implementation on the stage. In fact, the planning, control and reproduction of a specific desidered illusion in a scene has been granted for centuries now, by perspective. This MOOC will present some of the essential geometric principles on the accelerated solid perspective, i.e. an illusory method used for the construction of a physical space tricking the audience with greater depths than there actually are on the stage. Moreover, the students will master the geometry behind the scenic reproduction of the sketch: from the two-dimensional painting to the three-dimensional space of the stage, by going on a short journey through the historical phases of scenography from the XVIth century to today and through the acquisition of fundamental concepts of this discipline.

This course will finally show how the conscious use of the perspective processes applied to the theatrical scene has led to the stage implementation of three graduation thesis proposals in three famous operas: Aida, Tosca and Madam Butterfly.

What you'll learn

• the history of scenography
• hints of stagecraft
• the basic geometrical principles for the planning and management of the theatrical scenes