Several styles of play scenery have developed over the years.
Since the early 20th century, Broadway has influenced how we examine characters, how we tell stories, what we consider art and how we see the world. Broadway plays have tackled social issues, such as racism, gay rights and woman's suffrage. Several types of scenery were invented over the years to help deliver these stories with the maximum impact. This background scenery draws attention to or pulls the characters out of the time and place their story is told.
Proscenium Stages
Proscenium stages date back to Ancient Greek theatre, and are still widely in use today in sitcoms and several Broadway plays. These stage sets are meant to give the illusion of an interior and are rather like a doll house. The sets are made up of three walls decorated to appear as part of a house, office building, prison cell or whatever the interior calls for. The area where the fourth wall would be is left open to allow the audience to view what is going on, but is "visible" to the actors in most cases. Famous Broadway productions in this style include "Death of a Salesman" and "Fahrenheit 451." This set is not very versatile, and is often wheeled out onto the stage to provide intimate scenery for dialogue, then wheeled off again when the scene is over.
Eclectic Sets
Eclectic sets were popular in many productions during the 1980s and early 1990s. These sets combined a number of stages designed to transport the audience back to the time of the play (e.g. "Cats!" was written in the style of a Vaudeville revue, and was set in a junkyard with cars from the Vaudeville period), and special effects which expanded and extended the stage, such as "floating" stages (set on cherry pickers) and flashing lights. Notable Broadway productions that made use of eclectic sets were "Les Misérables," "Phantom of the Opera" and "Cats!" These stage productions often incorporated choreography into their act in an effort to strengthen the connection between the set and the actors.
Anachronistic Scenery
Still one of the most daring styles of set design for plays, anachronistic scenery uses sets and often wardrobe that are out of the intended time for the play. Orson Welles had great success on Broadway using this style, by staging a number of Shakespeare's plays out of time and place. Productions such as "Julius Caesar" were set in then-contemporary fascist Italy, and "Macbeth" was produced as an all-black play set in "Voodoo" (for Welles' purposes, a blend of African tribal and Creole) style.
