Unmasking Theatre Design: A Designer's Guide to Finding Inspiration and Cultivating Creativity: A Designer's Guide to Finding Inspiration and Cultivating Creativity

by Lynne Porter

Every great design has its beginnings in a great idea, whether your medium of choice is scenery, costume, lighting, sound, or projections. Unmasking Theatre Design shows you how to cultivate creative thinking skills through every step of theatre design - from the first play reading to the finished design presentation. This book reveals how creative designers think in order to create unique and appropriate works for individual productions, and will teach you how to comprehend the nature of the design task at hand, gather inspiration, generate potential ideas for a new design, and develop a finished look through renderings and models. The exercises presented in this book demystify the design process by providing you with specific actions that will help you get on track toward fully-formed designs. Revealing the inner workings of the design process, both theoretically and practically, Unmasking Theatre Design will jumpstart the creative processes of designers at all levels, from student to professionals, as you construct new production designs.

Genres: Theatre

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2014

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering the book is about designing for theatre, I find it rather problematic how little consideration is given to the technicians that are tasked with producing the designs. We need to produce designers that respect technicians. The bare minimum is acknowledging how they factor into the design process.

I was also thrown by the fact that sound design was not included in the book.

There is a lot of good information for beginning designers in this book, but there was a lot left out.

[Josh Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly executed. Well written and detailed descriptions of the creative process behind theatre design/designing in general. Porter gives you the keys to create and design. This book is vivid, lots of case studies and images, from costume design sketches to sketches of sets. Well worth a read if you’re new to theatre design and the creative process behind it all!

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entry book for lay people based only on the author's limited experience. That being said, you do not have to believe what the author says. However, the point is clearly made.