Scene Design: A Guide to the Stage

by Henning Nelms

Anyone working on scene design for the first time will find this book indispensable — amateur and semi-professional groups, high school students and their teachers, even puppeteers who will find the advice on model building invaluable for their own sets. Whatever play you are putting on, designing the set will be no problem when you have this book to guide you.
It contains an excellent discussion of scenery, sets, models, the principles of design, painting scenery, and arena design. Throughout this discussion, the author gives many tips that will save you much wasted materials and hours of work; working out sightlines before you design the set, choosing among different kinds of sets, constructing flats, making a truly realistic model, constructing a convertible set, working with a color chart and tone solid, spatter painting, adding touches, and much more. When technical terms are used, all are defined with extreme clarity: raked set, cyclorama, set axes, flats, flippers, masking pieces, etc. The author's 110 drawings and diagrams are especially helpful floor plans of sets, audience views, reverse views, different scene designs on the same basic set, and similar material. There is also a complete index.

Genres: Theatre

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1975