I am excited to talk about a new approach to teaching scenic design in a way I had never tried before and how it completely changed the energy of my classroom.
While teaching my scenic design class this past fall, I decided to do something different. Instead of treating the class as a purely theoretical exercise, I wanted my students to actively participate as designers for an actual production we would be working on for the American College Theatre Festival. The show was The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and rather than assigning a single student designer, I wanted the entire class involved in the process.
During the very first week of class, I gave the students a simple but important assignment: read the play and come back ready to talk about it, not from an academic standpoint, but from a designer’s perspective. What did they see? What stood out to them? How could the design support the story? Where could scenery help, and where should it step back?
From there, I asked each student to create their own PowerPoint presentation. These presentations focused on what they believed the themes of the play were, what imagery resonated with them, and what kind of scenic world they would create if they were the designer. They researched, gathered inspiration, and began forming individual concepts.
Next, I invited the director into the classroom. The director presented their vision and overall concept for the production, which gave the students a new lens through which to view their ideas. After that conversation, students were able to return to their research and revise their design concepts, adjusting their PowerPoints to reflect the director’s vision and the needs of the production.
As a class, we then sat down and talked through the realities of the show. What were the given circumstances? What elements absolutely had to be included? What had the director specifically requested? What could we not move away from and what could we be flexible about? These discussions grounded the students’ creative ideas in practical design thinking.
What made this class particularly exciting was how different it felt from a traditional scenic design course. Instead of beginning with history such as Robert Edmond Jones, Inigo Jones, new stagecraft and other foundational designers, we began with the play itself. Now don’t get me wrong we talked about the historical figures in scenic design and the fundamentals of design along with drafting as well. I want the start of semester to bemore of a seminar, focused on process, collaboration, and conversation. Students weren’t just learning about scenic design; they were actively practicing it.
Each student was tasked with creating their own color/scaled rendering of their vision for the set. Afterward, the director and I sat down together and reviewed each student’s renderings. From those individual designs, we began building a unified scenic concept. We created a ground plan, elevations, a final rendering, and a model of the set; but with one important rule: we intentionally incorporated at least one design element from each student’s work.
This approach gave every student a sense of ownership over the final design. Even though no single person was labeled “the scenic designer,” every student contributed to the process. They could see their ideas physically represented in the final product, and they understood how collaboration shapes real-world theatre design.
It was a powerful reminder that scenic design doesn’t have to be solitary. It can be collective, educational, and deeply collaborative and sometimes, stepping away from tradition opens the door to something far more meaningful.
Prudence Jones
Director of Theatre, Department of Performing Arts
Professor of Theatre Arts
Technical Director for Theatre Area
Fine Arts Summer Camp Director
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