Elements of Production

I was a little torn about what to blog about today. I think I want to focus on aspects of production - what I would do with The Winter's Tale if I were the director. I'll happily admit that The Winter's Tale wouldn't be my first choice, but I like to think that I could be creative. 

I'm aware that this is an image from Spamalot,
but that's more or less where this is going.

The first aspect to consider is, of course, the setting. I don't think The Winter's Tale lends itself to interesting adaptations as much as some of Shakespeare's other plays, but I think I would go with an Arthurian England motif. Not quite on the nose, but not so far removed that things wouldn't make sense. I love the idea of green, rolling hills and thatched cottages. It might be hard to execute, but we're just brainstorming.

The second thing I thought about was costuming. Actually, to be honest, I thought about costumes first because, in my opinion, the costumes are the best thing about any show. For a long time, I dreamed of becoming a professional costume designer for stage and film, so it's something I've spent a lot of time thinking about.

In an ideal world, I would have sat down and drawn out all of my costume ideas for the major characters, but unfortunately, this isn't my only class. So, instead, for the men's costumes I will point you toward the picture above, and I've found a Butterick pattern that more or less exemplifies what I would do for the ladies. I was originally thinking that I wanted Perdita in kind of a German Oktoberfest kind of dress with tons of cleavage, but I don't know if that fits the setting. But in my mind, shepherdesses are all dressed like they've come from Oktoberfest.

The third thing I considered was the lighting, but that's too boring and technical for me to want to discuss here. In a nutshell, darker lighting when things are going bad, and brighter lighting when things are going good. The first three acts would be pretty dark, and then the lights would come up slowly as Time gives his/her big speech.

I really love Time as a character, even though his/her part is so brief. I think, in my own production, I would try to expand Time's role somewhat and try to make the impression that Time is present for everything that's happening. I don't know how I would do that without it being hokey, but it's something I would try to work out. I think, perhaps, I would cast Time as a woman and have her in the background in as many scenes as I could sneak her into. I don't want her to be overt, I just want her to be there.