Overview
- The first contemporary study of Shakespeare and costume on stage today
- Argues that costume design choices are central to Shakespeare's work on character in terms of power, race, and gender
- Demonstrates that costume design can be a site of experimentation, playfulness, and transgression
Part of the book series: Shakespeare in Practice (SPPO)
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About this book
What is the role of costume in Shakespeare production? Shakespeare and Costume in Practice argues that costume design choices are central not only to the creation of period setting and the actor’s work on character, but to the cultural, political, and psychological meanings that the theatre makes of Shakespeare. The book explores questions about what the first Hamlet looked like in his mourning cloak; how costumes for a Shakespeare comedy can reflect or critique the collective nostalgias a culture has for its past; how costume and casting work together to ask new questions about Shakespeare and race. Using production case studies of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest, the book demonstrates that costume design can be a site of experimentation, playfulness, and transgression in the theatre – and that it can provoke audiences to think again about what power, race, and gender look like on the Shakespearean stage.
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Keywords
Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bridget Escolme is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary University of London, UK. She teaches and researches early modern drama in performance, costume history, and creative arts and mental health. Her publications include Talking to the Audience: Shakespeare, Performance, Self (2005); Shakespeare Handbooks: Antony and Cleopatra (2006); and Emotional Excess on the Shakespearean Stage (2014). She is co-convener of Queen Mary’s MSc in Creative Arts and Mental Health, a collaboration between the Department of Drama and the Centre for Psychiatry at Queen Mary.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Shakespeare and Costume in Practice
Authors: Bridget Escolme
Series Title: Shakespeare in Practice
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57149-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-57148-1Published: 24 December 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-57151-1Published: 24 December 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-57149-8Published: 23 December 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 215
Topics: Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Theatre Direction and Production, Theatre History, Theatre Industry, Literary History, Technology and Stagecraft