The theatre is a place where dreams are put into reality, and stories you could once only imagine unfold right in front of your eyes. “What a performance, what a show,” you think to yourself as you leave the venue. The traditional thought is to think of how good the actors were, or how brilliant of a job the director did- but there are often many more, unseen elements that create the brilliant production you just witnessed.
A production is much like a ship, everyone in it plays a vital role in getting it to its destination. Some of the most important, yet often overlooked aspects of the performance is the set design and the lighting.
According to An Introduction to Theatre Design, but Stephen Benedetto, when it comes to immersing an audience, having high-quality lighting can greatly impact an audience’s mood. Lighting conveys emotion, if you want an audience to feel sad and to really become engaged with the thing unfolding on stage; you dim the lights, center them on the subject, and watch as the audience looks on in bated breath, waiting for the next action.
Take Green Room Theatre’s Antigone (2023) directed by Sarah Breinig for example, a show which put the utmost care and time into the lighting to create a wonderful display that entrances an audience, and ultimately brings the show to a whole new dimension of quality.
Another critical yet often forgotten part of the show is the actual set itself. All the props, which quickly change between scenes in the seconds of darkness, play a massive part in telling the story of the performance. One of the bright minds in the darkness of the sets is Bryan Dieken, a senior at Olivet Nazarene University who works tirelessly around the clock to deliver some amazing performances. Dieken, being involved in quite a few productions now, got his start in a slightly less traditional manner than most.
“I first got involved through a random, last-minute audition to do A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet after having a class with Prof Wachter and her asking for me to show up that night and audition,” he said.
But it was the time spent behind the scenes where Dieken truly found his calling, and he found himself fully enthralled in the interesting, exciting, and exhausting world of the theater.
Being involved in a myriad of productions during his time at Olivet, it was in the set design where Dieken found his passion; a role which when utilized properly can alter thousands of individuals’ minds. It’s not just the sets where Dieken makes an impact, though, as he recently undertook the task of directing the play 39 Steps (2023) where he used his wide array of skills learned from working the trade of the theater to put on an amazing show.
When considering how set design will impact your viewers there is one primary rule to follow,
The scene designer has to develop a design concept with a central design metaphor in order to distinguish realism from non-realism, to establish time and place, to set tone and style, to coordinate with other elements, and to deal with practical considerations of how the stage space will be used.
An Introduction to Theatre Design by STEPHEN DI BENEDETTO
Sounds easy enough, right?
Well, maybe if you’re Bryan Dieken it is.
