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

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.

Introduction Part One: Theatre and Design Chapter 1: The Nature of Theatre Chapter 2: The Designer’s Goal Chapter 3: Two Key Elements of Any Design Chapter 4: The Designer's Expressive Tools Part Two: Deconstructing the Creative Process Chapter 5: Thinking About Thinking Chapter 6: Idea Generation Chapter 7: Defining the Creative Process Part Three: Putting Theory into Practice Chapter 8: Creative Process/Design Process Chapter 9: Fallacies about the Design Process Chapter 10: Essential Activities for the Designer Part Four: Unpacking the Design Process Chapter 11: Comprehend the Nature of the Design Problem A. Play Reading B. Embrace the Production Limitations Chapter 12: Gather Inspiration A. Play Analysis B. Visual Research Chapter 13: Invent Solutions A. [Good] Design Ideas B. [Good] Design Expressions Chapter 14: Develop the Work Chapter 15: Present the [Best] Solution Chapter 16: When You Get Stuck Chapter 17: Dracula, a Case Study of a Complete Design Process Part Five: Putting it All Together Chapter 18: Collaboration Chapter 19: Personal Factors Chapter 20: Designers of Dreams Appendix: Supplemental Exercises and Information A. More Play Reading Exercises B. More Play Analysis Exercises C. More Design Expression Exercises D. More Development Exercises E. More Presenting the [Best] Solution Exercises F. More Courage, Commitment and Focus Exercises G. More Introvert/Extrovert Exercises H. Design Conferences Unpacked Suggested Reading Software Resources End Notes Production Credits

Lynne Porter is Resident Designer and Director of the Theatre Program at Fairfield University, where she has been teaching, administrating, and making theatre since 1995.She is also the Academic Director of Creative Life Residential College, a sophomore experience focused on inspiring the creative impulse. She regularly designs for the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, where she is an Affiliated Artist of the Ensemble. She also designs with the Guerrilla Shakespeare Project in New York and various theatres from Maine to Georgia. Lynne is an associate member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America and a member of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, as well as the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She holds an MFA in scenic design from Indiana University.