The Tempest
by William Shakespeare
This version of The Tempest was done at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2021. As that entails, it was a live production with masked audience. This piece focused a lot on texture, rhythm, and movement. This piece also had a primary Ariel with a cast of four Ariels that mimicked the primary’s movement, intention, etc.
For this piece I stenciled and painted several pieces for the Ariels, and made the mask and wings for the primary Ariel’s harpy form.
Production Team: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
Director: Ryan Quinn
Production Stage Manager: Roxana Khan
Stage Manager: Janelle Caso
Costume Designer: Charlotte Palmer-Lane
Lighting Designer: Lucrecia Briceno
Properties Designer: Joshua Yocom
Sound Designer: Charles Coes, Nathan Roberts
Photographer: Charles T. Erickson
Wings base purchased from Amazon. Straps go under arms, and wings unfold by pulling hanging strings.
I traced off a pattern from the original wings, and remade them with a more appropriate fabric.
I then added stenciled pieces, draped pieces, and feathers, texturing it all to blend the colors.
The wings were worn with a mask I also made, shown below.
Mask blank for harpy Ariel mask.
Mask blank with hot glue texturing and beak made from EVA foam.
Mask painted with acrylic paints, and sealed with mod podge. Feathers attached with hot glue.
Using stencils and fabric paint, I textured a variety of pieces.
I stenciled four jumpsuits, two neck gaiters, and four shirts.
I was asked to use the color palette provided to make a naturey texture, and so I layered stencils and colors to this effect.
These were worn by the four Ariels for the duration of the show.
It allowed them to resemble Ariel enough to almost be her shadow. They functioned as almost a chorus.