PRODUCTION DESIGN AND ITS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: DANC&ON HIS GRAVE, 2021 NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY PRODUCTION AS PARADIGM

The practice of theatre in Nigeria i£ highly subjugated by Western theories and acting styles. Despite these challenges, production design continues to play socially responsive and responsible roles in our indigenous productions. Design throws more light on the actions and words of the characters to facilitate more of the audience intellectual comprehension of the play. Using content analysis methodology, the paper is able to identify the meeting point between theories and ' practice of design and technical theatre. It is observed that our indigenous performances are endowed with natural environment that presents the reality and lifestyle of our communities replicated in indigenous performances such as festivals, rituals, and rite-of-passages and so on. Hence, the end product (painting) of our scenographers are representations and reflections of our environmental reality in the theatre. The paper observed that though Western theories are used for the presentation of our indigenous performances, in a play like Dcmce on His Grave, the scenographic design aids in communicating the central message envisaged by the production team. More so, design adds aesthetics value to the production. The paper recommended among others that the acceptability of our local goods and services lies in the way they are portrayed to the foreign audienceship. And, designers should encourage the patronage of local crafts and sell same to project the image of Nigeria