Final Project Proposal

Full Concept Proposal

Introduction

From the author's experience in the suburbs of New York, there are no formal avenues of education for theater production, or stagecraft as it will be referred to throughout this writing.  Stagecraft encompasses all of the aspects of design and production of theatrical plays which include set design, lighting design, and sound design.  The worth that the field has to developing minds is great and this concept proposal's purpose and subsequent project, is not only to enlighten people to the merit of this field but also make this field of education more attainable within schools.  Some of the barriers that exist in the widespread acceptance of this field are the perceived unimportance of theater education and the lack of resources available to teach.  I can attest that both of these notions are untrue and further examination will prove such.  

Not only is theater education important on its own, but it has the capability to enhance other fields of study.  In traditional education, there are little opportunities to practically apply knowledge outside of written examinations which are not entirely satisfying.  The well known theory of Bloom's Taxonomy creates a pyramid with ideals that aim to facilitate higher thinking in education.  Through the guidance of this pyramid, the highest levels of competencies can be achieved through stagecraft. The activities used in creating a set are completely practical and connections between core subjects and the set production are quite clear.  For example, in a math class students can learn the formula for finding a side of a triangle.  Given information, they can plug it in and find the information they need.  Students can test their knowledge of the formula and apply it on quizzes and tests.  What stagecraft does that their class cannot do is see that theory in action.  

Let's say that students are designing a platform and need to figure out how to make it bend.  The realization through design would show them that they need to make a triangle to "bend" the platform.  That is the first place they will test their knowledge, in the recognition of their need for the formula.  After that, students would need to figure out what they have in terms of dimensions and what information they need to get.  Therefore, students can use the information like they would in the test and apply it.  Through another layer of understanding that is not apparent in traditional education, students can use a power tool to cut out the triangle, install it, and realize why learning such information is necessary.  It is in this way that stagecraft has the ability to meet all of the levels of Bloom's taxonomy.  

My goal is to create a learning system will introduce students to all of the different aspects of stagecraft so that when they are able to actually create, they have a foundational understanding of how everything works.  The smaller module that I will create for this class focuses on a large and important aspect to stagecraft, set design.  The set that will be designed will be for the show Little Shop of Horrors.

Why is set design important?  Set design is important because it has so much function within a show.  The set is as important a part of the story as the actors are and provides a setting for the story, sets the mood, and is a point of actor interaction.  Single handedly, the set can often make or break a production.  If the set does not function well in both appearance and operation, it can be a distraction for the audience.  It the set works, it increases the realism or adds to the allusion of the productions story and allows the audience members to immerse themselves in what is taking place on stage.  

As much as people want to believe that set design is an art form, it is truly a process and if the process is not followed, the outcome of the results will be jeopardized.  It is for this reason that this module is important in that it provides the base for prospective theater students to flourish.

This module will take students on a journey of designing a set for the show Little Shop of Horrors and provide the vocabulary and theories that have become the standard in theater production.  

Audience

The audience for this module will be beginner level, high school age males and females, within the age range of 14-18 years old.  All content will be universally appropriate for both groups and will feature multiple learning aspects to appeal to the different learning styles that students may have. 

Delivery

This module will be delivered through an asynchronous learning system that functions like an interactive slide show and has a final quiz at the end to test the understanding of the concepts learned.  The program will be made with various software within the Adobe Suite, such as Illustrator, Photoshop and Captivate as well as Microsoft Powerpoint.  The system will be assembled and processed in Adobe Captivate and then put online for students to use.  All students would therefore need is a networked connected computer that has a flash player installed on it, the player itself is free to download.  

In addition to text, the module will also utilize audio and images in multimedia fashion to meet the needs of students with different learning styles and aid in cognition in accordance of Allan Paivio's Dual Coding theory.  

Need Analysis

Through my experience, as stated before, students with interest in this field, have little opportunity to learn about this field in an easy, interesting way.  This program not only provides information necessary to work on sets, but does so in an interactive way that increases learning retention but keeps students interested.  

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this module, students will be able to:

-Identify different types of stages and the anatomy of a stage and use vocabulary to describe various stage locations,

-understand the steps in developing an idea for a set,

-identify the basic set pieces of theater,

-learn principles of design and how they apply to theater,

-identify different ways to create a mood with colors and set pieces,

-analyze how a set comes together.

Time Line

Week 1-3-Project Research and Development

Week 4-Story Board and Ethical Assessment

Week 5-Generate Materials for Production including text

Week 6-Make Video recordings and Edit Materials

Week 7-Assemble Video Elements and Text into Captivate

Week 8-Present Final Project

Budget

The only thing that is needed for this production is a large newsprint pad, which costs ten dollars.  After that, there is no need for a budget for this project due to the fact that all the materials are already owned and any additional material will be produced by me.  There also is no need for concern with copyright infringements or any other rights as they pertain to intellectual property as all images will have come from me as well.