TEACHING STATEMENT
Lynne M. Koscielniak
1.
Approach
Scenographers
function as historians, artists and technicians. In teaching scenography, I
provide students with the tools they need to fulfill these roles. It is my objective to equip them with the ability
to analyze texts, research topics, adhere to industry standards, and articulate
their design approaches orally and visually.
Armed with these tools, they can chart their own path to achieve their
design objectives. Young designers must find their individual artistic voices
while adapting their talents to the needs of each production and creative
ensemble.
Students
from a number of disciplines, including media study, visual studies,
architecture, performance, and design, take my beginning and advanced scene and
lighting design courses, in which we tackle a new library of plays each
semester. We discuss the classics, new
works, and plays by minorities, to provoke discussion of themes relevant to
today’s society. As some students will
take more than four courses with me during their time at the university, it is
important that they are always challenged by a new text. No matter what career
path the students will follow, they should leave my design courses with the
ability to articulate their ideas and with an awareness of theatrical design
and its creative process.
2.
Philosophy
Designing
for theatre requires an exploration into the denotative and connotative world
of the play. It is impossible to express
this content without the ability to achieve strong technical form. I care
deeply about text analysis, research, oral and visual communication, and
graphic standards. In my design courses,
I question the students on the details of the text and require them to write
down their responses. In writing, each
student solidifies the given circumstances of the play for him- or herself.
With this information, students can balance the needs of the play with the
dynamic of the playing space that they select for the production. I believe that a quick and visceral visual
response to a play can unlock a design approach. In class I have done a number of exercises
that allow the students to visually explore the play: analog drawings, creating
bash models out of molded paper, building sculpture in response to the text,
and arranging geometric shapes in a scaled drawing as a way to explore
composition. These gestural responses
can inspire an abstract environment, lead to the arrangement of real objects,
or influence lighting transitions. I require the students to create an
extensive research file, inclusive of both factual and emotional data that they
may use to inform their design directions.
Factual research may include background information on the playwright,
the social context of the play, and period and environmentally specific
research. Emotionally based research
consists of images that speak to the play in a non-literal way and are personal
to the student. Beyond analytical skills, to communicate as a designer the
student must have graphic ability. To that end I dedicate class time to teach
how to draw, paint, and how to use drafting equipment. As designers need to understand what they are
asking a computer to do for them, I teach students how to hand draft and render
before they are introduced to computer-aided programs.
3.
Innovations in Teaching
I
embrace technology and integrate it into my teaching. I use computer programs that allow me to
render space in three dimensions and create pre-visualizations of intended
lighting looks. This “what you see is
what you get” technology, known as WYSIWYG, has changed the way in which I
communication to the director, the lab technicians and my students. Ideas that
once could only be discussed by looking at 2-dimensional representations or by
executing them fully in the actual space are tested and revised in virtual
worlds. Through an Educational
Technology Grant, Itinerary Computer
Laboratory and WYSIWYG Learn Studio: Pre-visualization in the Performing Arts,
further supported from the
Through
the integration of advanced instrumentation designed for production, I have
reinvented the way I teach. With the
advent of automated lighting technology, all the controllable properties of
light: placement, shape, size, color, texture, and motion, can be adjusted
remotely. I have conducted experiments
with the students, exploring how light can be used as a malleable object that
emotes, evolves, and interacts with performers.
This innovation in teaching helps the designers understand how tech
tools can be an integral part of the collaborative process, rapidly
demonstrating ideas to their team, and how technology can be used to enhance
production values.
4.
Theory and Practice
To
truly grow, the theatre artist must practice within a laboratory setting. I promote undergraduate research activity, as
it is not until student designers work with a collaborative team and take a
design from start to finish that they truly understand all the pieces and parts
of the process. In the Department of
Theatre & Dance, undergraduate design students design eight fully-realized
productions each season. I am proud of
our ability to bring designers up through the ranks, starting off underclassmen
in supporting positions and allowing them to grow into being the lead designer
on a production. To give structure to
the students’ independent research in design, I have created protocol sheets and
project check-lists for each assignment, which in effect, has created a manual
for production protocol in the Department of Theatre & Dance. As undergraduate students hold these
positions of responsibility, my coaching of the students through the process is
essential. Formal mentoring of students
in production happens at a weekly Design Seminar that I lead. These sessions serve three main functions: to
provide a forum for the sharing of rough ideas, create a network of student
designers and technicians who become their own support system, and offer an
opportunity to guide designers through appropriate protocol for working with
the technical shops. I am on-site for
all technical rehearsals, staying in the background to let the students command
their original designs while being accessible when they are faced with a
production problem.
By
combining of theoretical projects, realized work, and involvement in theatrical
practices beyond the university, my area fully prepares our students for a life
in the theatre. My research and creative
activities off-campus give my students opportunities to act as assistant set
and lighting designers, automated lighting programmers, technical directors,
carpenters and scenic artists in professional arenas. This exposes the students to other production methods, to a
variety of venues, and to state of the art technologies, and it allows them to
start to build a professional network. When
working out of town, I have negotiated accommodations for University at
5.
Teaching Outcomes
In
recognition of my creative work and teaching, I have been invited to respond to
the work of emerging designers at the Yale Portfolio Review, the Kennedy Center
American College Theatre Festival Region VII and VIII, and the United States
Institute of Theatre Technology Conference’s Young Designer’s Forum. I have been asked to participate in a fellowship
program at the Kennedy Center, The
Collaborative Process: Designers and Directors led by Ming Cho Lee and
Constance Hoffman, a two-week intensive that brought together designers and
directors from across the globe and allowed for the act of collaboration to be
put under the microscope, so that we could study artistic team dynamics while
working toward production proposals for significant plays. I have given master
classes at University at
In
2005, I was named a “Celebrated Teaching Artist” by the Kennedy Center American
College Theatre Festival. As a teaching
artist, I expose my students to a process for design that I have developed
through numerous collaborations. My
courses follow a dramaturgical approach, where students “own” the text as equal
collaborators with the director. They
learn to become contributing artists to the production process and develop the
ability to articulate their design ideas both visually and orally. My students are aware of and practiced in
industry standards. Their proficiency
will allow them to take the profession forward, re-invigorating methods for
production, and, I hope, setting the trends for the future of American stage
design. In teaching scenography, I aim
to inspire the next generation of theatre artists with the fearlessness to
create honest theatre that can educate, inspire and amuse. Through my guidance, I help students find
their artistic voice and equip them to function in a professional arena. I am interested in training young designers
to rise to new levels of inventiveness while always maintaining an awareness
that each element of a theatrical production forwards storytelling in a unique
way. It is my goal to continue to
provide students with informative and energizing
challenges to further their development as theatre artists, technicians, and
managers.
In
testament to my teaching success, students who have functioned on my artistic
teams as lab assistants have gone on to positions with professional producing
agencies as well as to top graduate programs in design. My former students are on staff with Giordano
Jazz Dance Chicago and Hubbard Street Dance as well as positions on staff at
the Berkley Repertory Theatre, Hangar Theatre and Santa Fe Opera. I currently have students enrolled in MFA
programs at