Aroma-turgy

(Smell Design)

Abby Hines and Chloë Hill

Scent?! In Live Theatre?!

Aroma-turgy...yes this is a real word that I definitely did not just make up.

So, what is aroma-turgy you may be asking, well I'm glad you asked. When thinking of seeing a play or a musical, we know we will be immersed into whatever world will be on stage but have we ever thought about being so immersed that we can SMELL food being cooked or pine trees in the woods? A rising element of theatre has been aroma-turgy. This idea is structured around including scents within a scene.

Scent design must be carefully planned as you can't always control smell. Some parts of the room can have much more scent whereas other parts might not even smell anything.

Aroma-turgy: What’s Smell Got to Do With It?Cooking and smoking onstage aren’t the only ways smell is incorporated into a production—sometimes, the scent is part of the design.

Scent memory

Aroma-turgy in Other Plays

How Broadway’s ‘Waitress’ Achieves that Fresh-Baked SmellThe Broadway musical “Waitress,” earning a heaping helping of positive reviews in the wake of its April 24 opening, is so fresh out of the oven that it’ll have theatergoers believ…

Fresh-Baked Pie Has Aromatic Role in ‘Waitress’ Musical (Published 2016)After several attempts, producers of this Broadway musical have hit upon a solution to perfume the theater with the scent of baking.