designing: the tempest of lyme

Hello!

It has been ages since I last posted anything, but I have been busy getting everything ready for The Tempest of Lyme, which is so exciting!

In this post I wanted to share the final designs with you and explain a little bit of the final concept I went for. I will start by saying that the costumes and the creative concept of a production is always a collaboration between the director, the designer, research and the actors. It constantly develops and nothing is final until the costumes are on stage on opening night. Having said that however, I did do some final drawn designs. These help get the concept across to the whole cast and crew and they make it easier for the costume team to source and make. The other element to consider is how much time you have until the show, how much budget you have, how many other people there are on the costume team and how much you have to produce in said time. Considering all of those things here is what I came up with:

The Islanders (above) are brightly coloured and probably the most un-realistic of all the costumes, as they are on an island that has an element of magic to it. The colours and theme came from the idea of carnivals and exotic island life.

The Royals (below) are dressed in much richer colours. When I was designing I knew we wouldn't have the time or money to make full Shakesperean costumes that perfectly represented the characters in a historically correct way. Therefore the world we are creating is one where you have to use your imagination. I am going to use all modern clothes, that will then be tweaked and manipulated to give a hint of period. It's important to keep all costumes in a production from the same "realm" and therefore this was the best way I could think of doing this.

Lastly I have all the people that are aboard the ship. These characters are merchants and sailors and attendants. They need to look worn and slightly dirtier. Still in keeping with the contemporary meets period concept, this is what happened: