This paper takes theater as an experimental laboratory to purpose a new order in design sector. The study links the productive sector of a place, in the North of Portugal, with the theatrical scope that produces challenges and validates hypotheses to increase an equipment system in business sector.
The study benefits from a partnership with the professional theater company of Viana do Castelo, Teatro do Noroeste - CDV, to develop proposals for scene props for the play “Falar Verdade a mentir” by Almeida Garret, within the scope of the 2021 Viana do Castelo Theater Festival. This conjecture of connecting design with the theater, presents itself as a proposition to connect entities from different scopes, where multidisciplinary work can favor the creative process, fostering connections between disciplines, enhancing sustainability, creativity and innovation scenarios (RUSSO, 2018: 29).

The relationship between design and the local productive sector must exist, since design in synergy with the culture of a place, reaches advantageous scenarios for the products and territorial contexts to which they refer (APARO; SOARES, 2012: 43) In the pandemic context, the development of products, based on the culture of a place and the theatrical aspect, can be an opportunity to innovate. We are in a singular moment and culture was the first to be stopped (LUSA, 2020). So, designer proves to be essential in the role of preserving the culture of making (LA PIETRA, 1997) using experimentation as a fundamental factor, allowing methodologies of the local productive sector to be reinvented according to complex and ephemeral context (BAUMAN, 2001). Thus, design has a great responsibility in transmitting knowledge to micro enterprises, preserving and valuing their material and immaterial heritage (TOMAZI, 2016: 67). About this, the author Lia Krucken (2009) points out that by placing the focus of analysis directed to the territory, many opportunities can arise. Whether between producers, companies or local actors. Therefore, the theater is a creative stage for countless experiments, able to connect itself with design, a field focus on process. This principle was the basis for designing and developing stage prop solutions for a play, which can be transposed as a product system, from the stage to the business sector.

So, it´s demonstrated that the discipline of design can adapt to the current reality, proving the theatrical stage as a place for experimenting, sharing and validating the creative process of the designer, through an experimental and diffuse action between different subjects. Consequently, it was necessary to create a territorial network system, where the threats posed by the pandemic were transformed into opportunities inherent in the context and the time in which the project was inserted, producing a prototype of a stage prop, which supported the definition and development of an equipment system.

Throughout an analysis, the designer shows himself as an interpreter, appropriating the past to unleash renewed concepts with a future sense, reaching a meaning for his determination and for the project response (SOARES, 2012). Therefore, this study presents a non-interventionist and interventionist methodology, with a qualitative basis. The article focuses on the non-interventionist phase, based on the theoretical work of searching and collecting data and studying concepts about the proposed themes. The methodology was based on the concept of Metadesign which arises from the need to create a “platform of knowledge” that supports and guides the project activity in a fluid and dynamic scenario (MORAES, 2010). This phase was dedicated to bibliographic review, research on the scope and collection of case studies, being considered a fundamental step by the author Eric Von Hippel (2005), stating that the research phase provides a solid basis for empirical discoveries.

Consequently, the legitimacy of this study is found in the analysis of case studies in the Portuguese context, from the 19th century to the present, that testify the relationship between design, theater and the business fabric. This choice shows that the connection of different fields and knowledge can be an asset to create new relationships between different spheres, innovating various sectors and rethinking social responsibility. Specifically, investigating scenography and props as project solutions that aimed to innovate and / or improve the theater companies and agents involved in the creative process.

Thus, the article analyzes the case of Luigi Manini and Augusto Pina, highlighting the time between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, that represented the transition of Portuguese dramaturgy that always reflected the main and diverse aesthetic innovations that roamed Europe. In this period, particularly fertile in Portuguese political-cultural history, the aesthetic-literary movements ended up reflecting, in their ephemerality and anxiety, the bewilderment of a national culture perplexed by foreign fashions and confused among the rubble of the liberal monarchy, the bankruptcy of republican project and the threat of the military dictatorship. This is considered an uneasy period, but rich in the diversity of proposals and liveliness of debates (BARATA, 1991).

During the 19th century, scenography remained in the hands of specialized decorators and architects, who were guided by norms established since the 16th century. The work was restricted to a regulated ordering of perspective, creating a space that reproduced an illusion of reality and the scenery was limited by a space in two dimensions, materialized by the painted screen. The history of scenography in Portugal until the end of the 19^th century was definitely marked by the Italian artist, Luigi Manini, architect, painter and set designer with an interesting career as a scenographer in his country (Italy), he came to Portugal in 1879 to the Teatro de S. Carlos (MNTD, 2018). As an innovative artist, he participated in the movement for the renovation of Portuguese theater initiated by Companhia Rosas & Brasão, for whom he worked as a set designer since his debut in 1880. His set design was characterized by formal rigor, spectacular chromatic combinations and for the creation of realistic environments (MNTD, 2018), being quickly recognized for its innovative work. Thereby, among the various works carried out by the author, “Othelo” and “Hamlet” (Figure 1) stand out on the scene by Companhia Rosas & Brasão, in the years 1882 and 1887. The essence of the theatrical universe dominated intellectual and social life of the century, and Manini left us the testimony of huge screens that are preserved in the cellars of Lisbon's theaters, where the rigor of the geometric perspective in the construction of scenarios, through the combination of ruler and square drawing with freehand drawing, shows that the author 's training in architecture and painting was also transposed to the theatrical stage.

The scenographer was responsible for works of great plastic beauty, with the creation of special environments and atmospheres (LEAL, 2014: 57) and for this reason, his scenography activities were implemented in several Portuguese theaters. This spectacularity explored in Manini's scenography, has been transposed to monumental architectures, such as Quinta da Regaleira (Figure 2), through the mastery of sculptors, flowerbeds and carvers, using the artisanal practice of that period to build an architecture that synthesized the spiritual memory of humanity (REGALEIRA, 2020).

From the beginning of the twentieth century, the scenography has a new intervention in the construction of the show, being understood as a kind of writing of and in space in three dimensions. We move on to a global or total conception of the staging: the scenography cancels the painted screen as a mandatory and dominant element, becoming dynamic, multifunctional and multidisciplinary (MNTD, 2018). In the early 20th century, Luigi Manini returned Italy, leaving in Portugal some followers as the multifaceted Augusto Pina, illustrator of newspapers and magazines, decorator and scenographer.

Augusto Pina replaced Manini from 1894, at the Rosas & Brasão Company, following a naturalist aesthetic, inserting in the painted screen, accessories from the 20th century Lisbon era or from the environment of the theatrical plot. A scenography made by the famous Augusto Pina, which deserved several replacements and recreations, was made for the play “A ceia dos cardeais” (Figure 3), written in 1902 by Júlio Dantas. This set design proved to be fundamental in the history of Portuguese theater, due to the number of representations obtained and the quality of historical and cultural testimony of that Portugal (CVC, 2020). However, it was criticized and considered overloaded with epochal references (SENA cit in CVC, 2020), however, this mushy sentimentality (CARVALHO cit in CVC, 2020), was highly successful on its opening night. Success obtained by the impressive scenography performed by Augusto Pina that demonstrated a verism and scenographic opulence of the show (CVC, 2020).

This “contamination phenomenon” of performing arts by visual artists representing the aesthetic vanguards, contributed to the renewal of performing arts and to the development of new concepts emerging in visual arts in general (MNTD, 2018). The exposed cases of Luigi Manini and Augusto Pina, show that the interaction between different areas of activity become an asset for the innovation of the theatrical stage, proving that this place serves as an experiment for the subsequent design of projects carried out by artists, outside the theatrical scope.
Briefly, with this investigation it is expected to prove that the equipment designer can face the instability and complexity of the current reality, relating the project to the particularity of the theatrical space as an experimentation workshop. Likewise, the study demonstrates that the design hypotheses produced in this context depend on the competence of the designer to establish connections between the entertainment industry and the local productive sector. This creative process can be an opportunity for the design of a self-sustaining territorial network system, validating design as a discipline with responsibility and social value.