COURSE TITLE: THEATRE AND FILM SET DESIGN L 3 T 0 P 0 Cr 3

COURSE CODE: ARC 485

CA CATEGORY
EXAM CATEGORY: ETT

L2: History of Theater and role of Theater and

LECTURE DETAIL ():
Film set design in society

COURSE INSTRUCTOR:
 HISTORY OF THEATRE

Early Theatres (Roman Amphitheatre, Medieval Theatre)

Elizabethan Theatre
Seventeenth-century Theatre
Eighteenth-century Theatre
Nineteenth-century Theatre
Victorian Invention and legislation
Early Twentieth-century Theatre
World War II and After
 EARLY THEATERS
The first buildings used for theatrical performances in Britain were amphitheaters introduced
by the Romans, who copied theatres from ancient Greece.
These were semi-circular structures, constructed of wood initially and later rebuilt in stone.
They were open to the air with banked seating surrounding a raised stage.
Roman Amphitheaters

Standard Floor Plan

Roman Amphitheaters

1) Scaenae frons 2) Porticus post scaenam 3) Pulpitum 4) Proscaenium

5) Orchestra 6) Cavea 7) Aditus maximus 8) Vomitorium
 Roman Amphitheaters
• The orchestra was a half-circle.
• Romans added the first stage, the
pulpitum, that was raised 5 feet above the
level of the orchestra and reached by
staircases.
• The permanent scene house was called the
scaenae frons. The scaenae frons is the
elaborately decorated background of a
Roman theatre stage. This area
• usually has several entrances to the stage
including a grand central entrance.
 3 stories (rather than 2)
 Minimum of 3 doors (rather than
maximum)
 Very ornate building with columns, niches,
statues and gilding
• A vomitorium is a passage situated below
or behind a tier of seats in an
amphitheater, through which big crowds
can exit rapidly at the end of a
performance. They are also a pathway for
actors to enter on and off stage.
Medieval Theatre
• The next important milestone is the birth of the medieval theatre around the 9th or 10th
century, a few centuries after the decline of the Roman theatre. The intermediate period, the
Dark Ages, was a period when the theatre was officially banned by the Church.
• Ironically enough, the medieval theatre had its origins within the Church itself.
• This took the form of dramatization of episodes from the Bible and from the lives of saints.
• Gradually, in order to illustrate the stories further, separate booths were built to depict
different locales, and these included heaven and hell.

Medieval Staging:

• Two major kinds of stages in the medieval theatre:

Fixed and Moveable. These technical tricks would
be more extensive on fixed stages. The mansion
and platea were borrowed from the church
services.
• Medieval Theatre came to life on two different
stages: The Fixed (Stationary) Stage, and
the Pageant Wagon.
 The Fixed Stage consisted of a large mansion, which
served as different locations and scene changes for
during the plays. Heaven and Hell were the two
opposite realms identified by the two opposite sides
of the stage. The platea was the acting area adjacent
to the mansion.

moved outside
onto a porch that
was used as the
staging area
• Soon these stationary stages began to change. Stage construction soon took a turn to
something different, “pageant wagons,” which were basically small stages placed on a
wheeled wooden cart. This new type of stage changed the number of people who could
view the plays, instead of people having to travel to the church to see the play, the stage
and the play could now come to them.
• Usually these stages would have three
different parts and would represent earth,
heaven, and hell, usually with earth in the
middle of the others.
 Elizabethan Theatre:
• Medieval theatre was presented on elaborate temporary stages
inside great halls, barns, or in the open courtyards of galleried inns.
• It was from these that Elizabethan timber-framed open-air
theatres took their form, such as the Globe in London.
• They were often multi-sided buildings, with a covered platform
stage against one side.
• The audience sat or stood in covered galleries around the other
sides or in the open courtyard. All the performances took place in
daylight.
• Under Elizabeth I, the drama was a unified expression as far as
social class, the Court watched the same plays the regular citizens
saw in the public playhouses.
• With the development of the private theatres, drama became
more oriented with the values of an upper-class audience.
Elizabethan Theatre:
Elizabethan Theatre:
 17TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• The most lavish 17th-
century productions were
not open to the public. King
James I and later his son
Charles I commissioned
spectacular private
performances called
'masques' which involved
music, dance, opulent
costumes and extraordinary
scenery and special effects.
• They were performed once
or twice at one of the royal
palaces and were only seen
by members of the court.
Such lavish court
entertainments were
fashionable throughout
Europe as an expression of
princely power.
 17TH-CENTURY THEATRE
William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.

• His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, and these are regarded
as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly
tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth,
considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase,
he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other
playwrights.
 17TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• After the execution of Charles I in 1642, theatrical performances were outlawed owing to
the threat of civil unrest. Theatres closed and many were demolished.
• Following the restoration of the monarchy twenty years later, interest in theatre resumed.
• The introduction of scenery and elaborate stage machinery to the English public stage in
the 1660s gave rise to blockbusting semi-operas. Many of these were adaptations of other
plays, often by Shakespeare. These had episodes of music, singing, dancing and special
effects. They even had transformation scenes.

• The Duke's Theatre in Dorset

Garden was planned by William
Davenant and designed by
Christopher Wren.
• It stood by the River Thames and
steps led up from the river for
those patrons arriving by boat.
The theatre was the grandest
ever seen in Britain up to that
time, with an elaborate
proscenium arch, one of the first
in London.
 17TH-CENTURY THEATRE
Over the theatre were flats, where Thomas
Betterton, the leading actor of the late 17th
century and director of the acting company,
lived.
In reward for their loyalty to the Crown,
Charles II issued patents to two theatre
companies in London, Davenant and
Killigrew, to stage drama. They presented
at various sites across the city before they
set up permanent theatres in Drury Lane
and Covent Garden. Later, the King issued
limited patents to a few more theatres in
London. However, by this time, theatre
buildings began to change, influenced by
those in Europe. They were now roofed,
with stages for changeable scenery that
was slid into position using grooves in
their floors. Other scenery was flown in
from above. To accommodate these
elaborate stage sets more space was
needed behind the stage.
 18TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• Only patent theatres were able to perform drama – known as legitimate theatre. Non-patent
theatres performed melodrama, pantomime, ballet, opera and music hall. As these involved
music or musical interludes they could not be classed as plays and were regarded as
illegitimate theatre and were not subject to the Licensing Act.

• Later, a series of royal patents were granted to cities outside London. These became known
as “Theatres Royal”. Many still operate and were built in a restrained neo-classical style.

• Also in the eighteenth century, companies of players began to travel on regular circuits
between market towns. They set up their own theatres, called playhouses, which were
similar in shape and size. This enabled stock scenery to be easily erected and reused, which
made touring easier.

• Hundreds were built, of modest size and exterior. Their interiors were simple, consisting of a
rectangular flat-floored room with a stage that projected into the audience.

• People sat on benched seating on the floor in front of the stage, or on balconies against the
three remaining walls supported by columns or wooden posts.

• Any scenery was placed at the rear of the stage.

 18TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• Theatres had mainly wooden
interiors which were always at
risk of fire.

• In 1794 the Drury Lane

Theatre, London introduced
the first iron safety curtain,
which would eventually
become a statutory
requirement in all large
theatres.

• It also had a large water tank

on its roof – a feature that
was adopted by other
theatres – to extinguish fire in
the stage area. The theatre
also began to make its scenery
more fire-resistant.
Image showing the façade of the former Theatre Royal, Truro.
 18TH-CENTURY THEATRE
The new playhouses (growth of theaters)
Staging
At the beginning of the century some boxes were still placed alongside the stage and the
forestage or apron was still quite large. As the number and size of the theatres and
audiences grew, stages were redesigned so that the long forestage or apron of Restoration
times was shortened and pushed back almost to the proscenium arch. The separation
between stage and audience was further emphasized by placing the members of the
orchestra in front of the stage in an area known as the orchestra pit.
Scenery
In order to make scenes appear more vivid, as well as give added depth and perspective to
the stage, designers began to paint scenery on parallel wings, also known as flats, which
receded from the audience. This also made it easier and faster for stage hands to change a
setting, as the wings for later settings rested behind one another. When a scene change was
needed, the stagehands simply removed the flat and placed it at the rear.
Lighting
At the beginning of the century the auditorium was as brightly lit as the stage. As theatre
design developed, the stage was further separated from the audience by making the
auditorium dark during a performance, so that footlights and sidelights could be used to light
up the actors on stage. Lighting was originally by means of candles and candelabra but these
were replaced with kerosene lamps and gas lamps later in the century. All methods of stage
lighting at this time could be dangerous and accidents were quite common.
 18TH-CENTURY THEATRE
Acoustics
The size and overall structure of the theatres and stages contributed to the effect and
efficiency of the acoustics. Theatres designed with an oval shape helped to ensure that
acoustics were good and the proscenium arch helped prevent audience noise from
submerging the lines of the actors. Theatres with arched ceilings above the stage also helped
to boost the amplification of the play.

Audiences
Theatre-going was a very different experience from that of today and actors often had to
fight to capture the attention of the audience, which could be rude, noisy and sometimes
even dangerous.
Going to the theatre was a social event and audiences were a mixture of both rich and poor,
who sat in different parts of the theatre depending on whether they could afford cheap or
expensive tickets. The upper class patrons usually sat in boxes so that they could see and be
seen, while the lower classes were squeezed into hot and dirty galleries at the top of the
building.
Alcohol and food was consumed in great quantity; people arrived and left throughout the
performance; playgoers often chatted amongst themselves and sometimes pelted actors
with rotten fruit and vegetables. Rioting at theatres was also not uncommon. The Drury
Lane theatre was destroyed by rioting on six occasions during the century.
Eighteenth-century Theatre

The Drury Lane Theatre, London, watercolor by Edward Dayes, 1795

18TH-CENTURY THEATRE
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE

• In the early 1800s, theatre attendance lessened, owing partly to economic decline
and poor standards of acting and production. Patronage by the middle classes also
fell as a result of theatre’s increasingly bad reputation and raucous nature.
Consequently many closed or were converted to other uses.

• The Industrial Revolution saw many people from the country migrate to the
expanding industrial towns.

• However, in the more populated urban centers there was a significant increase in
theatre building.

• In 1843, the Theatres Act removed the patent monopoly and allowed other theatres
to present drama, with censorship still controlled by the Lord Chamberlain. This
encouraged the building of new theatres, invariably by speculators seeking profit.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• The elimination of painted
sets and the wing and boarder
systems that had dominated
the Baroque period started in
the early 19th century

Prism interiors

Baroque theater
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• Painted scenery was increasingly
replaced by three-dimensional scenery
with which the actors could interact.
• The advent of the use of gas in 1803
made it possible to control lighting as
never before.
• Frederick Albert Winsor, an
entrepreneur, took out a patent on a
lighting apparatus based on gas in
1804.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• Benches were
replaced by
individual seats.

• Safety measures
were practiced to
prevent fire.

• The moving panorama-painted settings on a long cloth, which could be enrolled

across the stage by turning spools, created an illusion of movement.

• Accurate details were used for the set of historical plays.

 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
Innovations
• The first revolving stage was
installed at the resident theatre in
Munich in 1896

• The first rolling platform stage was

introduced by Fritz Brandt at the
Royal Opera House in Berlin around
1900.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
Innovations
• The first fully developed elevator system was installed in the Budapest Opera house
in 1884.

• The proscenium arch was eliminated in some instances.

• Sight lines were improved.

 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
In USA
Booth’s Theatre 1869
• One of the buildings in New York
with sprinkler system for fire.

• Scenery was raised and lowered

from the stage using hydraulic
system.

• Stage lights were extinguished

both in the auditorium and
stage.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
In USA
Daly’s Fifth Avenue Theatre
• Renamed it to The New Fifth Avenue
Theatre.

• In 1877, It was the world’s first air-

conditioned theatre.

• Destroyed by fire in 1891 and rebuilt

in 1892 with a neoclassical style.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
In USA
Madison Square Theatre.
• Used the double stage technology for fast scene
changes.
• The theatre’s ventilation featured air drawn in
from the roof and circulated in the theatre.
• To maximize space, the orchestra was placed in a
balcony above the stage.
 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE
In France
Palais garnier

• Movement towards realism

 19TH-CENTURY THEATRE

• Safety measures were implemented. • Space above and below the stage
• Adequate sight lines. was greatly enlarged.
• Several elevator traps were installed.
 Victorian invention and legislation

• The Victorian period saw a number of innovations that impacted upon theatre design.
• Lighting changed from candle to gas and then later to electricity as a result of stringent
health and safety legislation. However, both emitted a more brilliant light that enabled
directors to use lighting for theatrical effect.
• Further legislation required that audiences seated at all levels could be evacuated
quickly and safely in the event of fire or panic evacuations. Most theatre interiors used
a lot of wood, including seats, balconies and structural supports. Fire exits and escape
routes became a statutory requirement.
• The development of cantilevered balconies was another innovation. These steel-
framed structures covered with concrete did not need supporting columns that impede
the audience’s view of the stage.
• Concrete soon became a popular material for theatre interiors, not only for its
resistance to fire, but also because it could be moulded into elaborate curved forms.
 Victorian invention and legislation
Tragedies such as the fire at the Theatre Royal, Exeter in 1887, in which more than 190
people lost their lives, led to more careful planning of new theatres or the
refurbishing of older ones.

Image showing the 1867 fire at Her Majesty's Theatre, London.

 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• The beginning of the twentieth century saw the introduction of a new component in
variety bills that would eventually lead to the closure of hundreds of theatres and music
halls. This was the bioscope, a forerunner of the cinema.
• The films were silent, but accompanied by music, usually an organ. These theatres
became known as ciné-varieties, because of their mixture of variety theatre and cinema.
• Some foresighted architects included a separate projection room in their plans. This
ensured the survival of some theatres as future fire safety legislation required any
building showing a film to have a separate projection room.
• However theatres which relied on cinema for their commercial survival, soon closed if
they failed to meet new regulations.
• World War I suspended theatre building, but by then it had reached a peak and demand
was satisfied. By then, large towns might have two or three theatres while cities could
have up to a dozen.
• The Depression further affected theatre-going and theatre-building. However, it was the
emerging popularity of film that concerned theatre owners.
• Super-cinemas were springing up rapidly, many designed in a radical new artistic style,
known as art deco or ‘the Hollywood style’.
• This in turn influenced the refurbishing of some new theatres, which aspired to a more
‘moderne’ appeal, that of glamour and glitz.
 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE

Image showing proposals for the New Victoria Theatre (now the Apollo Victoria) in
London, 1928.
 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• The period between the two world wars was one of social discontent, and saw the
rise of the Workers Theatre Movement. It used theatre as a way to advocate social
change and educate the masses. One of its achievements was the opening of the
Unity Theatre in London in 1936, in a reused chapel.

World War II and after

• During World War II, CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts)
was set up to provide entertainment for the civilian and military population, often
in community or church halls or in makeshift theatres in camps.
• It was television that led to the demise of theatre-going. But by then many older
theatres were seen as old-fashioned and did not appeal to the modern lifestyle of
the working classes.
• In 1968 censorship ended, and performances usually seen in club theatres could
now be staged in mainstream theatres. There was also an explosion of fringe and
alternative theatre – political, feminist, gay and community – some companies
acquiring and adapting redundant buildings for rehearsal and presenting.
 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE

Image showing the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.

 EARLY 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE
• Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, BAUHAUS was a school in Germany
that combined crafts and the fine arts and was famous for the approach to
design that it publicized and taught.
• One of the main objective of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft and
technology. The Machine was considered a positive element and therefore
industrial and product design were important components.

• Early 20th century was a new stagecraft of simplicity and suggestion.

• It objected to a three-dimensional actor standing on a flat floor
surrounded by acres of “realistically” painted canvas.
• Design of theatre was Suggestive, Simplified, Stylization.

• 1902 – Sky dome

• After 1912 – Lights were placed in the auditorium to allow for more natural
angles of illumination.
• 1914 – Projector lamp, A spotlight that could be dimmed.
• 1919 – Colored gels
• 1922 – Stage lighting had become a scientific study.
 20TH-CENTURY THEATRE

BAUHAUS STAGE, 1927