Design in Theatre

Introduction

Design in theatre generally includes areas such as set design, costume design, lighting design, sound design, set construction projection design, theatre engineering, stage management, and makeup design.   While each design area may engage expert designers, artists may also specialize in more than one area. 

 

In this section, a portion of over 2000 colour set and costume design sketches of various theatre productions and other performances drawn by former Neptune Theatre designer and founder (and original director) of the Dalhousie University Costume Studies program, Robert Doyle, are accessible.  The sketches presented on this site are considered by many to be works of art and they represent a unique and valuable cultural collection while providing important documentation on Neptune Theatre, the Nova Scotia International Tattoo, and the Dalhousie Theatre Department, home to the first Costume Studies program developed in Canada. Doyle founded the program in 1974.

 

The Dalhousie University Archives is also home to a costume bank containing over 150 costumes that have been donated by Neptune Theatre since the 1970s. The costumes represented on this site are samples of over thirty years of theatre history in Halifax, where the costumes represent some of the best work done by local costume designers, including Robert Doyle.

 

Design and Research

 

Archives and libraries are an invaluable resource to the designer.  During the academic year of 1991/92, the students of the Costumes Studies Programme at Dalhousie University created costumes which might have been worn by Halifax's earliest settlers. Students discovered their names from Halifax's oldest headstones, each choosing a mid-eighteenth-century Haligonian to portray. Continuing their research at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, libraries, church registers, and in well-documented secondary sources, each student undertook character analysis, and wrote a character sketch.

 

Please follow the link to the Dalhousie University Theatre Department, Costume Studies site to find out more.