Sample Questions for the Mid Term Exam

  1. Who are the four production designers?

  2. Which union represents the commercial American scene designer? How do you become a member of that union?

  3. Briefly discuss the differences, in scenic demands, between the proscenium theatre, the arena theatre, and the thrust stage theatre.

  4. What should be the color of the masking drapes?

  5. Out of what type of material should they be cut?

  6. What does a designer look for when analyzing a script?

  7. What are the standard heights of the flats in a stock set?

  8. What is the maximum width of a flat?

  9. What is the width of a door flat?

  10. Why do doors, on a conventional box set, open off stage?

  11. What is the difference between a double hung sash window, casement window, and French window?

  12. What are the standard sizes of stock theatrical platform/wagons?

  13. What is the standard tread width? Riser height?

  14. Sketch how a 3-step unit can suggest a flight of stairs to the second floor.

  15. Briefly discuss Mordecai Gorelik's "Action-Documentation-Metaphor" approach to scene design.

  16. What is the difference between representationalism and presentationalism? Which style was used for A Doll's House?

  17. What is a box set? How does it differ from a wing-border-backdrop set?

  18. What is the difference between "Realism" and "Formalism?"

  19. List four of the practical considerations a designer must consider when designing the set for a play or musical.

  20. What, according to Darwin Payne (The Scenographic Imagination) are the "scenographer's areas of influence?"

  21. What is the difference between the "general background" and "specific units of scenery?"

  22. List four scenic units which Darwin Payne would call "specific units of scenery."

  23. If a door is primarily used for an important entrance, where on stage should it be located?

  24. If a character must observe, through a set window, an important piece of action, where on stage should that scenic window be placed?

  25. What is the difference between presentational material and the working drawing?

  26. Which, a rendering or a scale model, better illustrates a designer's concept of how the set will look under light?

  27. What is orthographic projection?

  28. What is a floor plan? A front elevation?

  29. How much dimensional information needs to be provided on the drawings?

  30. What information should be included in the Title Block?

  31. Where on the drawing should the Title Block be located?

  32. List three drawings which should be included in a set of working drawings?

  33. What are the two most commonly used CAD programs?

  34. Describe three techniques which can be used to brace a set.

  35. What is the difference between a simultaneous set and a unit set?

  36. Who were Adolph Appia and Edward Gordon Craig?

  37. Briefly define the New Stagecraft.

  38. Who was Robert Edmond Jones? What was his influence on American scene design?

  39. List the title of at least one major Broadway show designed by Boris Aronson, Jo Mielziner, Donald Oenslager and Oliver Smith.

  40. Who was the first professor of scene design at the Yale School of Drama?
E-mail questions and comments to Larry Wild at wildl@northern.edu.
Posted: March 9, 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Larry Wild, Northern State University