Unmasking Theatre Design: A Designer's Guide to Finding Inspiration and Cultivating Creativity: A Designer's Guide to Finding Inspiration and Cultivating Creativity

Do you design lighting, costumes, and/or sets for theatre, films, or TV? This book is a great guide for you! Do you teach others how to design lighting, costumes, and/or sets? Have your students use this book! Are you interested in how to creatively collaborate with other artists in many genres (photography, film scoring, video games, Broadway, blogging)? Study this book!I read this book when it first was published and used it to frame the introduction of my dissertation on creativity and collaboration. I recently re-read it and remembered why I liked it so much the first time! Lynne Porter, designer and educator, clearly presents why to design, how to design, and provides specific examples of putting theory intro practice. The multiple graphics and photos helped clearly illustrate the main points. The layout and use of quotes makes the concepts sticky. I use ideas from this book every time I collaborate with other designers and artists.“Part Two: Deconstructing the Creative Process” works for musicians, creative designers of liturgy and group events, and educators as well as the target audience in the theatre.• Thinking About Thinking: using memorable tags like “Monkey Mind, Gater Brain, and Elephant’s Tether, Porter clarifies how the creative process has several “brains” interacting inside of one person. The clarity in presentation sets the stage for…• Idea Generation: Balancing the reality of both incremental growth and aha moments is critical for new creative people to master. The truth in the order of “obvious to interesting to innovative” about generating ideas succinctly summarizes my experience with the investment required to be truly creative.• Defining the Creative Process: Harnessing scientific research-supported theories of creativity, Porter explains these stages: o Comprehend the problem (read the play, embrace production limitations) o Gather Inspiration (analyze the play, visual research) o Invent solutions (good design ideas and expressions) o Develop the Work o Present the [Best} Solution“Part Four: Unpacking the Design Process” offers real life examples for designing lighting, costuming, and sets. If you are stymied in a particular project, see the section on “When You Get Stuck.” It honestly evaluates why we get stuck and provides concrete ways to move ahead. But all the chapters are helpful. (You’ll have to read the book to find out why Parts One, Three, and Five are worthwhile too! I just don’t want to give it all away! But go read them!)I really enjoyed reading this book and found it helpful in my creative process. Way to go Lynne Porter!

Nice first aid kit. Well made and covers the basics. There’s room for a few extra items of your own. I really like the size and construction of the case. I’m going to put this in my wife’s vehicle. Good product.

This is an exceptional book. There are other books covering theatrical design, both general and in specific design areas. This one is unique in the way it covers the topic. There is not another book like it in this subject area. Excellent.

Great Tool for Theatre professionals and those wanting to learn more about the business of designing within that realm. I will continue to use this text as a helpful tool throughout my career.

This book will not disappoint! If you are interested in learning HOW designers think, and how their design process works, this book is for you! It is packed full of color illustrations, and one whole chapter covers Ms. Porter's entire design process - sketches and models and all - for a professional set she designed.I was so immediately in love with this book - and it changed my teaching so dramatically - that I had to write to Ms. Porter and tell her just how much her book impacted me. An excerpt of my note to her is below:I am a theatre teacher at a high-school in Cleveland, and one quarter of my class is devoted to theatre design. Last year (my first year teaching), my design unit was pretty terrible. I have a lot of experience with acting and playwriting, but less experience with design, so I felt very uncertain teaching my students, and the big project I had them do was confusing and less helpful than I wanted it to be.This year, I wanted to completely redo my design unit, but I wasn't sure where to start. So I went to a library and asked a librarian for help finding some books on design. The first book he found for me was your book, and I checked it out (along with about 30 other books). Yours was the first I opened, and I spent the rest of my free time that school day reading it, and finished it that evening at home.I immediately scrapped everything I had planned, and created a whole new unit based around the ideas in your book.I know understood - as I hadn't before - HOW designers think, and how they go about the process of design. I also understood now how this process mirrored the creative process that is necessary in every kind of creation and invention.As I experimented with the project I created for my students, I myself found a new interest for design, and a new belief that I could be creative in this way.Your book completely changed my perspective and approach to design, and I think this is going to do wonders for the way that I teach, and the way my students learn.Thank you, thank you, thank you.I am so grateful for the clear and logical way you explain the design process, as well as the loads of pictures and models to illustrate every concept. Your chapter on your Dracula process was particularly exciting and illuminating. My students will be exploring and analyzing your Dracula process as they work through their own design process.Again and again, thank you. I am so grateful for the work that you put in to help your fellow design teachers.

Inspiring!