How, and how often, do we include direct experience of space as a core component of scenographic education? How can we do this more consciously when planning educational platforms? Is direct spatial experience a skill—and can it be taught?

Devising scenography at a 1:1 scale, curating the scenographic use of space in situ, and deciding how existing architecture is theatrically inhabited are now widely used scenographic practices. How can we support students—future practitioners—in developing this dimension of their expanded design/scenography toolbox?

How can interdisciplinary collaboration within education equip students with genuine collaborative skills, and sharpen their awareness of a shared future practice with directors and theatre-makers?

Is scenography a practice reserved only for scenographers and designers?

In this presentation, I draw on my work on the Scenography Cluster, part of the Interdisciplinary Practices unit on the MA Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, developed in partnership with Swiss Cottage Public Library. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, the cluster took the form of a residency embedded within the library’s public spaces during opening hours. The building functioned as both the site of learning and the site of outcome: a day of public performance fragments that also constituted the summative assessment. Designers, directors, and performers worked together, enacting scenographic decisions in real time and real space.

Presented in “Theatre and Performance Design Pedagogy Conference 2018”
15 March 2018, Barbican LONDON

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