Stage design as a directing decision tool

The aim of the article is to identify the features of stage design as a tool for representing the director's vision of the play in historical retrospect and at the present stage. Research methodology. The system method was used (for the study of scenographic design as a holistic and developed system); functional-typological method (to clarify the functions of stage design in the context of the specifics of design and directing); historical and cultural method (to consider this issue in the development of stage design), etc. Scientific novelty. Stage design as a unique tool for representing the director's vision of production is studied; the peculiarities of the conceptual and material sequence of the process of creating a visual image of the play are analyzed (according to D. Payne); the influence of the New Stagecraft movement on the formation of the modern concept of stage design was revealed; the specifics of stage design in traditional and non-traditional space are considered. Conclusions. Over the centuries, the artistic solution of stage production has undergone many different transformations, according to a specific period of historical development of theatrical art, recreating the environment in detail, minimizing to virtually free of scenery and props stage space, representing innovative technologies and others. At the present stage, theatrical art in general and directing in particular, continues the search for a new form of production. Under the influence of intensification of integration processes, which technologically and informationally combine various means of communication and information, as well as in accordance with the development of a specific culture of creating and showing theatrical performances, an important part of stage design of the XXI century. became audiovisual media - television, cinema, video and multimedia. The study found that in the process of historical development of the theater, the focus of the set designer has shifted from the interpretation of the text on a given stage space to the deconstruction of the found space in a critical context. However, stage design remains a powerful expressive force in the work of the playwright and director, strengthening them as a visual imprint, organically integrated into the semantic universe of the play. The stage design of a theatrical performance is the result of logical, figurative thinking and intuitive feeling expressed through an idea or a central theme. The original organization of space, drama, functionality of scenery and costumes, multimedia, lighting solution embody in a plastic solution the idea of ​​the play, staged by the director. Remaining the most important figure in the theater, the director finds visual support in the scenographic rhetoric of forms, volumes and chromatics in the process of creating an ideal sphere, with a single homogeneous content