Archive for the 'shakespeare' Category

Feb 02 2020

Merry Wives of Windsor at the Folger Theatre

Published by under shakespeare,sketchbook

Folger’s last production before major renovations is a delightful romp in 70’s chic. Here are my sketches:

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Apr 08 2019

All About Endpapers, or What You’ve Been Missing If You’ve Only Seen the Paperback of The Odyssey and The Iliad

A lot of my readers are not aware that the hardcover editions of The Odyssey and The Iliad have art in them that does not appear in the paperback editions.

At the beginning and end of a hardcover book is something called the Endpapers (or simply “ends”). These are usually separate sheets of paper that are used to bind the inside pages to the cover.

Ends fig a

Here are the endpapers I created for The Odyssey (click to see larger!)

Ends fig b

These are all actual vase paintings from classical Greece. Some of them are explicitly scenes from The Odyssey, others I just found thematically appropriate to allude to the story of Odysseus. In some cases I changed what kind of vessel they are painted on — in real life some are tiny and some are huge, and I wanted them to be more uniform in size.

For The Iliad, I chose a different approach. Here I use shields to tell the story of the lead-up to The Iliad. Again, you will only get these if you get the hardcover; but now at least you can see what you’re missing. In the book they’re printed in blue.

Ends fig c Ends fig d

The designs on Greek shields tend to be much less narrative than the vase paintings, so in this case I didn’t use real historical ones. (Quite a few of the shield designs inside the book are real, though not necessarily from the Bronze Age — but these I made up to tell the story, stylizing them in a way I think is reasonably consistent with Greek shield painting.)

They summarize the story of the beginnings of the Trojan War, as follows: (1) the founding of Troy, (2) Thetis and Peleus, (3) the Apple of Discord, (4) the abduction of Helen, (5) invoking the oath of the Achaean Kings, (6) Odysseus and Achilles being tricked into revealing themselves (as, respectively, sane and not a girl), (7) the fleet launching, (8) the sacrifice of Iphegenia at Aulis, (9) the archer Philoctetes bitten by a serpent, (10) the beginning of the war, (11) Chryses’ appeal to Agamemnon, and (12) the plague-arrows sent by Apollo.

Those, by the way, are all cool stories you should look up if you don’t know them 😉

Not all of my books have bonus artwork on the endpapers of the hardcover. If you’re wondering why that is, continue to Part 2, In Which the Author Geeks Out About Bookbinding.

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Dec 20 2017

STC Twelfth Night

My schedule is such that I only just barely managed to catch Shakespeare Theater Company’s production of Twelfth Night before the end of its run (which is today). I’m a huge fan of Ethan McSweeney’s work (particularly The Tempest from a few years ago), and Twelfth Night did not disappoint. It features the most powerful beginning of any version I’ve seen, a powerful ending as well, and lots of laughs in between. The set is very spare for STC (there are reasons) while the costumes are spectacular and distinctive. The costume changes of Sir Andrew Aguecheek are particularly wonderful. I did a few sketches on my iPad. I was up in the balcony, so I couldn’t see facial details very well, thus I have no idea if I captured anyone’s likeness, but hopefully I got the broad strokes of their characters fairly well.

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Feb 03 2017

Folger Shakespeare Theatre’s “As You Like It”

Earlier this week, I want to see Folger Shakespeare’s production of As You Like It, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. I really enjoyed the performance; the first half was slow in a couple of places (mostly because Shakespeare didn’t do a very good job of giving the characters motivations) but once things start to come together in the second half it’s a delightful romp, with excellent dramatic, comedic, and musical performances by the entire cast.

Here are my sketches (done digitally with iPad Pro & Procreate app) –

Cast: Lindsay Alexandra Carter, Kimberly Chatterjee, Michael Glenn, Will Hayes, Jeff Keogh, Aaron Krohn, Allen McCullough, Brian Reisman, Daven Ralston, Lorenzo Roberts, Antoinette Robinson, Dani Stoller, Tom Story, Cody Wilson.

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May 16 2016

STC’s Taming of the Shrew

Last night I saw Shakespeare Theatre Company’s new production, The Taming of the Shrew. It features an all-male cast, a craft market in the lobby, a lot of music, and a bunch of other cool immersive touches. As with every Shrew production I’ve seen, it struggles to rise above the misogynist speech in the final scene, but in other respects I thought it was quite marvelous. The actors were all superb, and extremely consistent. The musicality was impressive. You could almost say they turned the play into a musical — which is a kind of an odd choice, and it didn’t work 100% of the time, but there were points later in the story where it really elevated what was going on. It did, however, make for a long show. It ran almost 3 and a half hours. During the intermission they had drinks and snacks in the theater, and allowed the audience onto the stage while the actors continued to do… well, a lot of things that aren’t in the actual play. That might sound odd or gimmicky, but actually I found the result was unique and powerful. In fact I’d say the treatment of the intermission, and some of the threads that emerged from that, might have been the coolest part of the show.

Of course I drew. Some of these I drew on paper, and others on a new iPad Pro I’m testing out. I turned the brightness all the way down and worked on a grey background so I wouldn’t distract my neighbors. You can probably tell which drawings are digital and which are traditional (especially since there are some glaring clues besides the line quality) but I’m pretty impressed with some of the tools, especially ProCreate’s pencil simulation, which uses the Apple Pencil’s tilt sensor quite effectively.

 

The show runs through June. Definitely recommended.

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Mar 04 2016

STC’s Othello

Published by under shakespeare,sketchbook

Last night I went to Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Othello. It’s a powerful performance of a powerful play. Without further commentary, here are my sketches…

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Feb 11 2016

Midsummer at the Folger in midwinter

Published by under shakespeare,sketchbook

Last week I went to see the Folger’s excellent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s a fairly modern interpretation, with strong performances by the whole cast, including very physical performances by Puck and Oberon, a demurely scene-stealing Snug (Lion), and several lovely and comical musical interludes. Definitely recommended. It’s up until March 13. Here are my sketches.

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Nov 19 2015

Pericles at the Folger

Published by under reviews,shakespeare,sketchbook

Last night I went to see Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the Folger. Pericles is an unusual play, and most scholars think it was only partly written by Shakespeare (Wikipedia link). The first half of the play is colorful but rather choppy, as the narrator tugs us along quickly through an epic series of journeys, not really getting into much depth in terms of character or drama. However, the events themselves are quite interesting, with cool mythological overtones, and eventually the narrative builds up a compelling reality. Working with this source material, the small company of actors/musicians paints a beautiful and vivid tapestry. It’s visually lush and musically ambitious, and I recommend it quite highly. Here are the sketches I did during the performance.

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Aug 11 2015

Published by under Macbeth,odyssey,Poe,process

Today TeachingBooks.net is featuring an article I wrote about my process (in general, with specific focus on Macbeth). They also have a short audio clip I recorded about my approach to The Odyssey.

Poe status update: 1 month to go! Also, listening to The Iliad again in preparation for jumping into that.

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Feb 27 2015

Launch event recap

Published by under appearances,Macbeth

Presenting Macbeth at the TKPL, photo by Bruce Guthrie

I’ve had three Macbeth launch events so far, and all have gone swimmingly. First I was in Boston, dealing with snowbanks up to my chinny-chin-chin, but lots of folks came out to join me, for which I’m very thankful! Wellesley Books and Porter Square Books have been super-supportive of my work for years, so I was very happy to have the first launch events there.

The first event was at Wellesley Books, Alison’ former employer and a fabulous group of folks who are really family to us at this point. Lots of teachers came to this one, as well as friends and fans old and new.

Next up was Porter Square Books, with a great turnout including lots of good friends, and two fabulous actors from ASP doing a scene from Macbeth as part of the presentation. Mara and Jesse were great. If you’re in the Boston are you should really check out ASP, they stage wonderful productions.

The second round of events is here in the DC area. Monday night I was at the Takoma Park Library. Great turnout, including some of my fellow aikido students. The talented Dave Burbank turned the tables on me by doing this great drawing while I was presenting — and pulled in some imagery from my Macbeth reference photos as well!

Portrait of me presenting at TKPL, by Dave Burbank

Portrait of me presenting at TKPL, by Dave Burbank

Also Bruce Guthrie took all these great photos. This is the best-documented event I’ve done by far!

Me with Dave Burbank and Karen McPherson (two of my favorite librarians!)

 

Presenting at TKPL, photo by Bruce Guthrie

Tonight I’ll be at Hooray For Books in Alexandria, VA. No projector, so I’ll be drawing oldschool, on an easel. Next week I’m doing an event for local schools at Politics & Prose, and then my local events are done for a while. (To keep up with all my events and major news, sign up for my e-newsletter here.)

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