Stagecraft is a technical aspect of theatrical, film, and video production. It includes constructing and rigging scenery; hanging and focusing of lighting; design and procurement of costumes; make-up; stage management; audio engineering; and procurement of props. Stagecraft is distinct from the wider umbrella term of scenography. Considered a technical rather than an artistic field, it is primarily the practical implementation of a scenic designer's artistic vision.
In its most basic form, stagecraft may be executed by a single person (often the stage manager of a smaller production) who arranges all scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound, and organizes the cast. Regional theaters and larger community theaters will generally have a technical director and a complement of designers, each of whom has a direct hand in their respective designs.
Within significantly larger productions, for example a modern Broadway show, effectively bringing a show to opening night requires the work of skilled carpenters, painters, electricians, stagehands, stitchers, wigmakers, and the like. Modern stagecraft is highly technical and specialized: it comprises many sub-disciplines and a vast trove of history and tradition.
Greek theatre made extensive use of stagecraft, and Greek vocabulary and practice continue to influence contemporary Western stagecraft. The defining element of a Greek theatre's stage was the skene, a structure at the back of the stage, often featuring three doors. The usual setting for a classical Greek tragedy was a palace, and skenes were decorated to support that setting.
On the audience-side of the Skene, what are now known as flats could be hung. Flats developed to two-sided painted flats which would be mounted, centered, on a rotating pin, with rope running around each consecutive pin, so the flats could be turned for a scene-change. The double-sided-flat eventually evolved into the periaktos.
Greek stagecraft was essential to the storytelling of its works.