Set Design Teacher Resources
The bell rings calling audience members to their seats. The house lights dim. Before a word is spoken, before an actor appears, the audience is drawn into a fantasy world that becomes real thanks to the work of the set designer. Sometimes stunning, sometimes spooky, sometimes awe-inspiring or fanciful. The set for a theatrical production provides the audience with a context for the drama they are about to experience.
There are many factors to consider when designing a set. Introduce the elements of set design with a lesson that asks theatre arts classes to analyze how designers put together various elements to craft a set that establishes the mood and tone for a play. Use a scavenger hunt to acquaint young set designers with a website filled with examples of maquettes and helpful information. Another lesson asks groups to investigate tech tools and apps that aid in set design. Or if you want your students to understand the entire process, check out this collection that details the design process from start to finish, from script analysis to play production.
Showing 69 resources
Lesson Planet Curated
Understanding Set Design
Looking for a complete unit on set design? Check out the lessons in a collection that takes theatre arts students through the entire process, from the initial reading and analysis of a script to the presentation of a production model.
Curated OER
Lesson 1- Set Design
Line, shape, color, texture, space. The first in a three-part series of lessons intended for advanced theatre arts classes introduces the elements of set design. Class members examine maquettes and analyze how designers have put together...
National Arts Centre
Create a Set Design
Groups create a set for a play or story they select, build a model, and share their stage with the class. The team explains the rationale for their choices and the mood they feel their staging creates.
Oxford Cambridge
Set and Prop Design
What's the difference between set dressing and a prop? Between a costume accessory and a personal prop? As part of their study of set and prop design, class members engage in a series of activities that prepare them to design a prop for...
National Arts Centre
Scavenger Hunt
Young theatre artists engage in a scavenger hunt to acquaint themselves with set design. The challenge is to search the site and match a separate maquette with each of the 24 clues.
AQA
Teaching Guide: Set Design
The task of creating a set for a theater production may leave theater arts students asking where to begin. Set their minds at ease with a packet that not only provides information about the elements of design, but also guides them...
Brigham Young University
Putting Ideas Together
As part of their study of set design, theater arts students put together what they have learned so far and create a thumbnail sketch of a set that they feel captures the style and mood they want to project.
Brigham Young University
The Presentation
As their final act in a 10-lesson theater arts unit, set designers present their models to the class and explain how their choices of line, color, and texture support the theme they wish to convey.
Shakespeare in American Life
Performing Modernized Shakespeare
“All the world’s a stage…” What do Leonardo DiCaprio, Heath Ledger, and Kenneth Branagh have in common? They have all starred in modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. After viewing a series clips from modern Shakespeare videos,...
Brigham Young University
Understanding the Research Process
The second lesson in a unit on set design focuses on the importance of historical and stylistic research. Working in teams created in the previous session, groups consider what resources they will use as they consider design concepts for...
National Arts Centre
Visual Metaphors in Scenic Design: Activity
As part of a study of how visual metaphors are used in set design, class members examine an image of designer Josef Svoboda's 3-D scale model for the opera Idomeneo, re` di Creta. They then find another example that employs a visual...
Brigham Young University
Computer Age
Theater arts class members get a chance to see how professionals employ tech tools. As they sketch, render, build models, and prepare presentations of the set design for a current show, learners either visit a professional theater or by...
Curated OER
Set Design: Public Space on Stage
Students create a set that captures the essence or feeling of a public space.
Brigham Young University
Introducing the Text and Learning the Process of Script Analysis
Where do directors and set designers get their ideas so that the set they build creates the mood and atmosphere the director wants for a production? From the script! Introduce theater high schoolers to the script analysis techniques used...
Brigham Young University
To-Scale Models
Guided by their analysis of a scene, their initial sketches, and renderings, set designers begin to craft a scaled, 3-D model of the set of the play they have chosen.
Brigham Young University
Problems? Working it Out
Working in pairs, set designers take turns sharing their sketches, explaining how their renderings articulate their concept, and receiving feedback on concerns and questions.
PBS
Primary Source Set: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: Leadership and a Global Stage
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is, among other things, the study of a ruler's ambitions. Young scholars watch videos, read articles, and keep a Commonplace Book while studying the play. At the end of Act III, pupils stage the play that...
Curated OER
Shakespeare Stealer: Design a Set
In groups, learners design sets for the play, "Shakespeare Stealer." They sketch a scale model of a set and present it to the teacher, who will choose which group gets to design the entire set.
Curated OER
Semiotics and Set: Year 9
Drama enthusiasts explore the importance of set and action in conveying dramatic tension. They act out a polished dramatic piece using the set as a key component of their story. This should be connected to setting as it is also used in...
Brigham Young University
Understanding Design, Composition, and Color
The set for a play combines design elements (style, line, shape, mass, measure, position, color, and texture) and principles of composition (unity, harmony, contrast, variation, balance, proportion, and emphasis) to create a particular...
Curated OER
Lights, Camera, Action...Crossing the Delaware in 9 Scenes
How does reading a drama differ from reading a novel? Middle schoolers become playwrights and explore these differences. After viewing the A&E movie,"The Crossing," groups create stage directions, write dialogue, and design sets and...
Curated OER
Promptbook Act 2.1: Katherine vs. Petruchio
Compile a promptbook with your young theater designers using a scene from Taming of the Shrew. The lesson outlines several activities, though it doesn't provide any examples of a promptbook or text from the play. Additionally, it...
National Endowment for the Humanities
The Glass Menagerie as Expressionist Theatre
The first activity in a three-part unit has high schoolers examine The Glass Menagerie as an example of expressionist theatre. After reading a short article about expressionism, scholars list expressionist techniques in Tennessee...
