Building Resources for the Creative Team
It takes a lot of people to put a show together. It takes a director, designers, dramaturgs, actors, and technicians to prepare anything. After all that preparation, there needs to be an audience for the show to complete its process. We thank you for taking the time to watch this production and do this additional research.
For all of the creators of the play, it is necessary to have a guide. The director gives this guide in the form of a director's concept. For this production, the director, Adam Houghton, gave some cultural and artistic inspirations. He used these to help the designers and cast have an understanding of the look and feel that he wanted for the production. Some of these inspirations were The Lawrence Welk Show, the art of Grant Wood, and Teatro Malandro. These phrases may not be very familiar to you at first glance, but you can see their influence all over this production of Twelfth Night.
One of the roles of a dramaturg is to help people understand the world of the play. This is not only for you, the audience, but also for the actors and designers. As a dramaturgical team, we wanted to help all involved in the process understand all these inspirations. One of the ways that we did this was to build a website that the actors and designers could access during rehearsals to have reference articles, images, and videos. These references helped everyone get on the same page in the rehearsal room and create a cohesive world. The website is divided into learning about Shakespeare, Text Analysis, and the inspirations of the world of Illyria. Click on this link to check out the site and see what you can learn for yourself!
