David Hays’ Setting the Stage is intended for a wide public—not just theater cast and crew but critics and audience members who want an understanding of scenery, lighting—the physical dimension of stagecraft. The author is a teacher who can also do the job. He’s lectured at NYU and Columbia, worked with such luminaries as Elia Kazan and Arthur Penn and directed the National Theatre of the Deaf. Hays is concerned with the small details—“the ‘aha!’ factor” that keeps characters, action and mood in focus. (He even includes a floor plan for his production of Long Day’s Journey into Night.) The author’s aesthetic sensibility is expressed through reminiscences of plays past. He’s got pages and pages of memories.
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