Second thoughts are best: Edward Gordon Craig and an education through theatre design

Craig’s vision of theatre making was one of ongoing reinvention; to turn over what had been and to look for new ‘truths'. It required a mastery of the multiple domains of theatre practice: the visual, the performative and the technical as well as an acute engagement with the intangible, the poetic and perhaps the spiritual.

This paper will focus on the UK; to provide a sense of the emergence and development of theatre design as a site of study and to place Craig’s vision of the ‘theatre athlete’ in the context of contemporary theatre design education. Perhaps a hundred years on from ‘On The Art of the Theatre’, this is a good time for ‘second thoughts’; to review and evaluate Craig’s legacy and influence and to consider what advice he might have for us in contemplating the next hundred.

Sound Editor: Peter Key Sound Design and Production, peterkey@btinternet.com

Related Exhibitions

Space and Light, V & A Theatre and Performance Galleries, 11/09/2010 – 13/03/2011

The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, June 2011

Liam Doona

Liam Doona is the Head of the Department of Art and Design at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art,
Design and Technology in Dublin. A practicing theatre designer, he is a member of the Society of British Theatre Designers and of the Association of British Theatre Technicians. He also writes articles for The Blue Pages, the journal of the Society of British Theatre Designers. His study of American stage designer Jo Mielziner, ‘Hope, hopelessness; presence and absence’, was recently included in Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography (Routledge) January 2010. Liam has taught Theatre Design at the University of Central England, Bretton Hall College and Nottingham Trent University. He recently co developed Ireland’s first honours degree in the field of scenography: Design for Stage and Screen, and is currently designing for York Theatre Royal, England and Ouroborus Theatre, Ireland.