Design and Technical Theatre: Set, Costume, Lighting and Sound
Design and technical theatre asks how visual and aural choices create meaning. For set design, know staging forms (proscenium, thrust, in-the-round, black box, promenade), sightlines, masking, flats, rostra, treads, revolves, trucks, fly systems, cycloramas, practicals, scale, levels, and symbolism. For costume, understand silhouette, period accuracy, fabric weight and drape, colour palette, ageing and distressing, quick changes, character signalling, and symbolic colour. For lighting, learn lantern types (profile, fresnel, PAR, flood), gel and colour temperature, intensity, angle and direction, special effects (gobo, breakup, haze), cueing, fade times, washes, specials, and safety. For sound, understand reinforcement versus effect, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, cue sheets, microphones (radio, boundary, shotgun), mixing, fade and crossfade, and soundscape.
Traps in questions
A common trap is treating design as decoration rather than meaning-making. "The set was a lounge room" is description; "the low ceiling and shabby furniture compressed the actors, visually reinforcing the family's poverty" is analysis. Another trap is confusing diegetic (sound originating in the world of the play) with non-diegetic (underscoring). Watch for questions on cue timing and fade duration, where precision matters, and on collaboration, where you must explain how design meetings, technical rehearsals and bump-in/bump-out schedules shape the final product. Also avoid unsafe or impractical suggestions; examiners value feasibility.
Worked example
If asked to design lighting for a confession scene: "A single profile special at a steep 45-degree angle (choice) would cast a long shadow and isolate the actor within a dark wash (effect), while a slow ten-second fade to black on the final line (timing) would let the silence carry the emotional weight (justification)." Rule of thumb: state choice, function, and feasibility.