StageSpark: 1 Creative Stagecraft App for Theatre Students

As senior drama students, you know that a play doesn’t just happen in the dialogue. It happens in the silence between lines, often amongst the stagecraft, the long shadows cast across the floorboards, and the claustrophobic arrangement of furniture that traps a character in their own home.

You have the vision. You can see the mood of A Streetcar Named Desire or the stark isolation of Waiting for Godot in your mind’s eye. But transferring that vision from your imagination to a tangible, technical plan has always been the hardest hurdle—until now.

Welcome to StageSpark.

Right here on this page, you have access to a powerful, browser-based design studio that bridges the gap between artistic vision and technical realisation. Whether you are building a portfolio for your final assessments, brainstorming for a class production, or simply exploring the mechanics of the stage, StageSpark is your new secret weapon.

Here is a deep dive into the features that make this tool essential for every aspiring scenic designer and lighting designer.

1. The Virtual Set Design Workshop

StageSpark isn’t just any old stagecraft app. It’s a simulation of a theatre space. It respects the physics and logistics of the stage.

Five Stage Configurations: You are not limited to a standard Proscenium Arch for your scenic design. With a single click, you can transform your workspace into a Thrust, Traverse, In-the-Round, or a completely Experimental immersive space. This allows you to explore how sightlines change and how audience proximity affects your set design choices.

The Prop Store: We have stocked the virtual prop store with over 100 items of stagecraft and scenic design. You will find standard scenic design elements (flats, rostra, stairs, doors) alongside specific hand props required for the classic canon. Need a skull for Hamlet? A trapdoor for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street? It is all there in the toolbar, ready to be dragged, dropped, resized, and rotated.

Layering and Depth: Just like on a real stage, you can stack items. Place a rug, put a table on the rug, and a vintage lamp on the table. The “Send to Back/Front” controls give you full mastery over the Z-axis of your floorplan.

2. Lighting Design

Lighting design is often the most difficult element to visualise without physically being in a theatre. StageSpark changes that by giving you a virtual lighting grid and a rig full of instruments.

The Instrument Library: You aren’t just placing “lights.” You are choosing between Profiles (for sharp, defined spots), Fresnels (for soft washes), PAR Cans (for intense punches of colour), and Floodlights.

Beam Control: This is where it gets technical. You can adjust the beam angle (how wide the light spreads) and the throw distance. In the 2D Floorplan view, you will see the beam path visualised, helping you plan your coverage and avoid dark spots in your lighting design.

Gels and Intensity: Every fixture in your lighting design can be coloured using a full spectrum selector. Furthermore, you can control the lighting opacity. This allows you to layer lights—mixing a warm amber wash with a cool blue backlight to create that perfect, neutral visibility, or dimming everything down for a moody noir atmosphere.

The Gobo Library: Texture is everything. We have integrated a library of 50 gobos (patterns). You can project leaves, windows, cityscapes, fire, water, and abstract shapes onto your stage floor. These elements allow you to create a lighting design environment and atmosphere instantly.

3. The Stagecraft Design Briefs (Powered by AI)

Stuck for inspiration? Open the Design Briefs menu.

We have curated 100+ Design Briefs based on the world’s most famous plays, from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams and Caryl Churchill. Each brief provides the play’s context, the specific scene, the style (e.g., Naturalism, Expressionism, Absurdism), and a checklist of required set design elements.

Once you have built your scenic design, you can click “Grade My Design.”

StageSpark uses advanced Artificial Intelligence to act as your virtual drama teacher. It analyses your floor plan and stagecraft in real-time and provides you with a combined set design and lighting design scorecard out of 10 marks based on four criteria:

1. Requirements: Did you include all the mandatory props?
2. Lighting: Does the mood match the scene description?
3. Spatial Arrangement: Is the layout logical for the stage type?
4. Atmosphere: Have you captured the essence of the play?

You will receive detailed, constructive feedback, helping you refine your work before you ever hand it in to a real teacher.

4. Visualise a Scenic Design in 3D

Designing in a 2D “bird’s-eye” view is standard for floorplans, but theatre is a three-dimensional art form.

At any moment, you can toggle to “Audience 3D” mode. The floorplan tilts, the elements stand up, and you can orbit around your stage. This allows you to check your sightlines and visualise the height relationships between your actors and your scenery. Oh, and guess what? Every prop and object is given a measurement, not in pixels for the browser, but in inches, feet, and yards (Imperial), or, if you’d prefer, in millimetres, centimetres, and metres (Metric).

5. Capture and Keep

Your work deserves to be seen. The “Snapshot” feature allows you to instantly download a high-resolution PNG of your stage. It automatically adds the production title and a footer to the image, making it ready to drop straight into your process journal or design portfolio.

Ready to begin?

Maximise the window below, select a Design Challenge, and start creating. The stage is yours.