"Designing Pericles for Post Secondary Performance"

Shakespeare’s plays commonly jump from location to location in an episodic and cinematic manner. Pericles, Prince of Tyre takes this to an extreme, as audiences follow the title character from port to port over a period of many years. The challenge of producing an epic play of this nature may be one factor in the dearth of productions of Pericles on modern stages. In 2017, Central Michigan University took on the challenge of producing the romance by creating a visual environment that borrowed elements from many different Mediterranean cultures and melding these into a cohesive design. This paper will discuss the design process employed by the costume and scenic designers for this production in the envisioning of the world of this play, and the educational value in tackling a play of this nature for theatre students at a postsecondary level. The paper will present examples from the design process from period styles research to working sketches and renderings, culminating with finished design drawings and production photographs.