It was 2002. Facebook didn’t exist. Nor did Twitter, Youtube or even the now ageing Myspace, heck people had only just started using “Google” instead of Alta Vista search! I’m sure you have all heard of those names… though I suspect that only the older readers amongst us have heard of Alta Vista!

In a very short time only a very few people would have heard of “Scenography: The Theatre Design Website” But in it’s ten year life it did for Theatre Designers what Facebook did for everyone else. From simple beginnings it grew to be visited by hundreds of thousands of people and offered it’s members vocational and social networking, a fully fledged user-editable online portfolio and blogging system and an unparalleled International Theatre Design Editorial service.

But back to the beginning… 

We were all sat in that pub on a summers evening weary from a long day in the design studio/paint shop/workshop/props room. I can’t remember all the names. Amy, Jake, Gemma, Liam & Phil (Sadly no longer with us) are three names that stick. Apologies if I left you out! The question we were asking ourselves was how do we as theatre designers use the internet to promote ourselves. In the early 2000′s theatre designers were barely making a mark on the web. A few designers had their own sites but little in the way of community existed. The Society of British Theatre Designers had a website with a long list of designers and some images of their work, but the pages were static and you couldn’t search anything.

A community site where designers networked, shared their details, shared their work… and perhaps worked together and collaborated would be fantastic! It was also beyond anything that any one of us could accomplish – we simply didn’t have the skills. But we went ahead anyway and created “Scenography – The Theatre Design Website”

In those early days the site was publicly viewable but only graduates of the university could access the social networking side. The forums and discussion areas were only open to graduates and students too. Sound familiar? Well that’s exactly how Facebook started out! Two years later and we opened our doors to any student or graduate of theatre design or practising theatre designer. In that first year membership rose from 100 to 400. At it’s height we had over a thousand. doesn’t sound like much right? Bare in mind however that this was a a very limited target audience to begin with, how many theatre designers do you know? The Society of British Theatre Designers has a membership of less than half of that.

2007 marked the height of our achievements as the site was invited to work with Scenofest at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. We were fortunate enough to attract more members, writers and clutch of theatre design personalties to contribute to our “Prague Quadrennial Blogs” Invitations to theatre design events across the globe promptly followed and the site was also invited for inclusion into the British Library’s Digital Archive.

Sadly the global recession hit us hard – advertising revenues dropped significantly. Yet at the same time we were growing ever more popular. The candle was burning at both ends and as Myself and the other volunteers found our own lives heavily impacted upon by the economic crisis we became aware that perhaps it was time refocus our energies on our own lives. Social networking was changing the virtual world. Today businesses value their Facebook “Pages” just as highly as they value their own websites. And so too do many artists including theatre designers.

We accomplished a vast amount in the life of Scenography but the landscape was changing. I take great pride in knowing that what we did significantly helped designers across the globe. friendships were made, ideas were shared, people networked and perhaps most importantly theatre was made!

Martin Paling 2011

Thanks:

I’d like to thank the following for their contributions to the Scenography – The Theatre Design Website

Angela Paling, Iliam Brown, Nikos Kalaitzidis, Will McNiece, Ruth Evans, Vanessa Streeter, Corinne Robinson, Bianca Feuth, Sara Sheehan,
Zuzana Mala, Lynne Strulyart, Randy Gener, Sophie Jump, Kate Burnett, Martin Morley, Tolis Papazoglou, Lesley Lyndsey, Ria Wicks, Rebeka Haigh, Martin Davies, Kate Allenby, Hayley Romangoli, Lili Rogue, Rodrigo Cortes, Kate Vickers, Brian Etwall, Georgia O’Neill,  Mayorwatch, Seenit, DSAMedia, Society of British Theatre Designers, OISTAT, Scenofest, USITT

We’d like to thank everyone who worked on “Scenography – The Theatre Design Website” in it’s 10 year life it was visited by hundreds of thousands of readers and was an essential part of 1000′s of theatre designers lives.

However all good things must come to an end and the core team behind the site needed to move on and consider their own careers. This decision was also influenced by the global recession and it’s impact upon sponsorship and advertising revenues. Ultimately it’s no easy feat to operate such a massive and complex  website such as scenography on a voluntary basis and there had to come a time when we called it a day.

We wish you all the best for the future.

The site will now be archived on this WordPress.com blog. WordPress may display adverts – this is beyond our control and no proceeds of these adverts go towards the Scenography site/organisation which has now ceased to exist.

The Edward Gordon Craig lecture at Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London on Monday 23 May, 6.00-7.00 pm, will be given this year by Paule Constable, the international, award winning lighting designer who has recently been nominated for a Tony award for Best Lighting Design for War Horse on Broadway. Followed by a drinks reception.

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More details at the CSSD Website

Thus suggesting an interesting cohabitation: where else could you find an installation gathering such varied artists as Romeo Castellucci, a major European theatre director and one of the key figures of the Avignon festival, Markus Schinwald, Austria´s representative at the next Venice Bienale, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, unmissable Ukrainian-born visual artists, Anna Viebrock, the famous German scenographer, Josef Nadj, choreographer and director of the Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans, and many others? This outdoor performing exhibition will be a journey for audiences, explained by Intersection Curator and the Prague Quadrennial Artistic Director Sodja Lotker, “It will all question one and the same thing: what is performance? And who is performing? Is theatre something theatrical – an illusion, a straight-forward lie? Or is theatre just one of the basic ways to express ourselves? …everyday“” Out of the boxes, the Intersection project will cover the entire city of Prague, thanks to various site-specific spectacles and installations, created by Árpád Schilling / Krétakör, Claudia Bosse / theatercombinat, and many others.

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PQ011 - Intersection

In the very center of Prague, just between the National Theatre and the New Stage (ex Laterna Magica) will emerge, during 11 days in June 2011, a surprising artistic labyrinth, unmissable by passersby. Oren Sagiv, Architect of Intersection, explains the structure of this ephemeral construction, “Addressing the intermingling of theater and visual art together with the concept of intimacy, the first image we have formulated was of several room-size black boxes and white cubes (micro ‘ideal theaters’ and ‘ideal galleries’) that are parked in the public square, each providing a compact interior for an intimate engagement with a work of art, often made for one viewer at a time.”

Passersby are invited to enter the complex and hang around, enter a box and be surprised, enter another and leave immediately, or stay in the next box for hours, slowly perceiving an artist´s thoughts or emotions, or interacting with a performer (many of the boxes will be “occupied” by a live performer, for example Josef Nadj will stay in his box personally throughout the event). Visitors are also welcome to come back a few days later, to spend time again in a beloved box. „It’s a live exhibition that will talk to you only if you talk back to it. This living and breathing exhibition will tell you stories, and the more time you spend there the more it will speak to you. It will require positioning and it will let you get lost. If you are afraid of intimacy – you better not enter.“ says Sodja Lotker. You might also have a drink at the bar attached to the dwelling, thus having a nice view of the entire installation, allowing you to observe visitors passing from one box to another, or the tramways passing by on the adjacent street. Or come back at night for the cinema freely accessible from the roofs of the construction. Thus this unique artistic event aims to interact with the everyday life of the city.

Continuing to walk around the streets of Prague will allow visitors and passersby to bump into more interesting situations, introduced by Sodja Lotker, “These might be some of the projects of the boxes that have spilled from the boxes and have gotten scattered around the public space. Some of them tiny – creating close intimacy in the public space, some of them more ‘grandiose’ – political, questioning, and irritating. This is what we call spectacular!“ . Spectacular will be, for instance, the Claudia Bosse and theatercombinat´s tears of stalin, an „explosion of silence“, an urban intervention gathering of over 500 people in the center of the city. Or Krétakör´s jp.co.de, a film and an installation including an experiment involving twelve people living for two weeks in the former headquarters of a printing house in the center of Prague – it is the first part of the Crisis trilogy, conceived by Árpád Schilling, and performed during 2011 in Munich and Budapest. A bit further in the city, in the former cooking area of the Bohnice mental hospital in Prague, you might hear Philip Glass’ opera Les enfants terribles, a site-specific performance directed by film director Alice Nellis for the National Theatre. Czech artists will also take up the city center. For instance, the Galerie2 will exhibit major Czech artists who will have the venue at their disposal for a period of twenty-four hours each, thus being forced to respond to the non-reversible changes caused by their predecessors. Lastly, the pioneer of modern stagecraft won’t be missed in the city since his works will be presented in the Space and Light: Edward Gordon Craig exhibition realized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Participating artists Romeo Castellucci / Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio // Josef Nadj // Anna Viebrock / Till Exit // Nathaniel Mellors // Ana Borralho & João Galante // Markus Schinwald // Mareunrol’s // Brett Bailey // Hooman Sharifi // Ilya and Emilia Kabakov // Monika Pormale // Hans Rosenström // Josef Bolf // Guerra de la Paz // Monika Pormale // Terike Haapoja // Egon Tobiáš // Elevator Repair Service // Ioana Mona Popovici & Simon Vincenzi // Ulla von Brandenburg // Caroline Evans & Hansjorg Schmidt // Bohdan Holomíček & Eva Hrubá // Abbey Theatre // Harun Farocki // Dace Džeriņa // Paul Divjak // Dejan Kaludjerović // Kateřina Fojtíková // Tomáš Vaněk // Tomáš Džadoň // Pavla Sceranková // Dušan Záhoranský // Jan Haubelt // Ivars Gravleys // Petra Pětiletá // Daniela Baráčková // Vasil Artamonov // Alexey Klyuykov // Alice Nikitinová // Tomáš Moravec // Matěj Al-Ali // Jan Pffeifer // Jan Komárek // Tomáš Svoboda // Stage Code & La grande bande // Handa Gote // Jan Lepšík // Alice Nellis // Árpád Schilling / Krétakör // Claudia Bosse / theatercombinat
Artistic Director Sodja Lotker // Architect Oren Sagiv // Executive Director Daniela Pařízková // Production Director Jakub Matějka
The Intersection project is organized by the Prague Quadrennial (CZ) in cooperation with New Theatre Institute of Latvia (LV) // HYPERLINK “http://www.escritanapaisagem.net/%20″ \t “_blank” Escrita na Paisagem Festival de Performance e Artes da Terra (PT) // the Victoria and Albert Museum (GB) // Kiosk (RS) // HYPERLINK “http://www.kretakor.hu/” \t “_blank” Krétakör (HU) // the National Theatre in Prague (CZ) // MiBAC-Direzione Generale per lo Spettacolo dal vivo (IT) // HYPERLINK “http://www.kiasma.fi/” \t “_blank” Kiasma Theatre, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (FI).
Following the Prague Quadrennial, during 2011 parts of the Intersection project will travel to Santacangelo (IT), Munich (DE), Évora (PT), Bergen (NO), Riga (LAT), Nitra (SK), Terni (IT), Belgrade (RS), Helsinki (FI), and Budapest (HU).

SBTD: Transformation & Revelation Catalogue

An exhibition celebrating the exceptional talent in British theatre design.

From March 18th the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff will host the 2011 exhibition ‘Transformation and Revelation’ presented by The Society of British Theatre Designers. This is a unique opportunity for people in Wales and the rest of the UK to preview this extraordinary collection of work before it travels in part to represent the UK at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition this summer. A selection of designs will be on display at the V&A from 17th March 2012 – 30th September 2012 and will also be available as a UK touring exhibition.
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The exhibition also offers an exclusive sneak preview of the new Royal Welsh College landmark £22.5m development currently under construction which is due to open in the summer. The exhibition will take place in a number of spaces including the newly built Richard Burton Theatre, and will mark the first public event to be housed in this exciting venue.

The exhibition will include drawings, paintings and photographs, 3D artefacts, scale models, specialist props, costumes and puppets, and there will be extraordinary interactive exhibits from Lighting, Video and Sound designers, Theatre Consultants and Theatre Architects.

The total number of exhibitors anticipated is over 200. It will include notable designers such as Richard Hudson, Marie-Jeanne Lecca, Paul Brown, Bob Crowley, and Yolanda Sonnabend to name but a few. Designs on display will range from Antony Gormley’s Sutra with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the Shaolin Warrior Monks for Sadlers Wells to Es Devlin’s designs and projections for the Lady Gaga Monsterball Tour.

Ian MacNeil’s new designs for the New York version of Billy Eliott will be shown alongside Lion King designer Richard Hudson’s latest works for dance.

The exhibition also includes work from emerging talents such as the very latest winners from the prestigious Linbury Biennial Competition. In addition the ACTD (Association of Courses in Theatre Design) schools exhibit will show work from UK design schools and colleges. A full programme of Workshops with exhibiting designers will be taking place with local schools, colleges and community groups throughout March and April 2011.
Design concepts for well known classics will be displayed alongside new works, stimulating engagement and imagination of both Industry professionals and public visitors.

The theme of Transformation & Revelation specifically aims to explore the ideas and processes behind the final designs. The exhibition will provide an insight into how an idea becomes a design, and how it then reaches the stage in a realistic form. Exhibitors will explore the process that takes them from an initial idea to research; from 2 dimensional sketches and computer generated imagery to a 3 dimensional model, and finally to full size build and performance.

The exhibition is open weekdays from 9.30am to 8pm and weekends between 10am and 5pm between March 18th and April 16th 2011.

A full colour catalogue with editorial text and contributions from over 200 designers will also be available to purchase during (and after) the exhibition. An essential resource for art, drama and design students, teachers and theatre professionals, the catalogue will be influential beyond the life of the exhibition.

As recent cuts in arts funding threaten the future existence of our regional theatres and theatre companies, an exhibition promoting recognition of the UK’s diverse and rich pool of theatre design talent is crucial to help inspire the support necessary for the survival and development of British theatre, encouraging a new audience for theatre and inspiring a new generation of designers.

Geoffrey Marsh, Director of the Department of Theatre at the V&A said:

“We are delighted that a selection of the best designs will be shown at the V&A as part of the Museum’s celebration of modern British Design. UK designers are world leaders across this sector and the exhibition will provide an opportunity to promote their talents to a large British and International audience”.

Entrance to this exhibition is free to the general public.

Where: Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, The Castle Grounds, North Rd, Cardiff, CF10 3ER

When: March 18 – April 16 2011

For more information and updates about what is happening, please visit our website:  Motley Alumni – The Home of Alumni and Friends of Motley Theatre Design Course http://motleyalumni.wordpress.com/  and join Save Motley Theatre Design Course on Facebook.

As the world’s premier theatre design & theatre architecture event it is an unmissable date in the calendar.

Visit the PQ Website for more details.

Malcolm was a celebrated director, writer and translator of operas and plays. He was also instrumental in the development of the BA (Hons) Theatre Design course at the Nottingham Trent University where he is remembered for his lively and often unorthodox lectures… in one he famously burst into dance complete with waving handkerchiefs.

He will be sorely missed, but fondly remembered.

Register Now! Students can register for two projects at the moment:

– Six Acts, an opportunity to create a series of site-specific spectacles lead by prominent international artists in buildings and spaces around Prague.
Deadline for registration: October 30^th, 2010

-  Design as Performance, performances and installations brought by schools and groups of students to Prague streets or into DISK theatre
Deadline for registration: October 30^th, 2010

Registration to Scenofest Workshops will be open on January 15, 2011.

More information on www.scenofest.org.