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All's Well that Ends Well
Location
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director
A Regional Tony Award recipient, Chicago Shakespeare Theater produces a bold and innovative year-round season—featuring plays, musicals, world premieres, family productions, and theatrical presentations from around the globe—alongside education programming for students, teachers, and lifelong learners, and creative community engagement with artists and neighbors across the city.
Founded in 1986, the Theater has evolved and expanded to present as many as twenty productions and 650 performances annually and has been honored with numerous national and international awards. Chicago Shakespeare is the city’s leading presenter of international work and has toured its own productions to five continents. Dedicated to welcoming the next generation of theatergoers, one in four audience members is under the age of eighteen.
The unique architecture of the 500-seat courtyard-style theater was inspired by theaters in early modern England, and evokes the design of Shakespeare's Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre.
Date
CST’s Courtyard Theater, April 22 – May 29, 2022
All’s Well That Ends Well
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Shana Cooper
"Once you figure out that this is not your grandmother’s Shakespeare — at CST, it never is — then you can settle in for the ride. The high-energy production has a rock opera, graphic novel vibe that comes off as a brazen dream. It is buttressed with strong strokes by Andrew Boyce, Raquel Barreto, Paul James Prendergast and Stephanie Martinez, who made a vigorous whole of the scenery, costumes, music and choreography, respectively." Chicago Sun Times, 5/1/2022
Creative Team:
Scenic Design: Andrew Boyce
Costume Design: Raquel Barreto
Lighting Design: Adam Honoré
Sound/Composition: Paul James Prendergast
Hair & Make Up Design: Richard Jarvie
Movement Design: Stephanie Martinez
Magic Design: DENDY
Verse Coach: Gregory Linington
Intimacy Director: Sarah Scanlon
Stage Manager: Katrina Herrmann
Cast:
Patrick Agada: Second Lord
Mark Bedard: Parolles
Christiana Clark: Widow Capilet / Duchess of Florence
William Dick: Lafeu
Alejandra Escalante: Helen
Francis Guinan: King of France
Casey Hoekstra: First Lord
Dante Jemmott: Bertram
Joseph Aaron Johnson: Rinaldo / Soldier Lord
Ora Jones: Countess of Rossillion
Jeff Kurysz: First Soldier / Soldier Lord
Emma Ladji: Diana
Pablo David Laucerica: King’s Attendant / Soldier Lord
Elizabeth Ledo: Lavatch
Tanya Thai McBride: Mariana
In my third collaboration with director Shana Cooper, we set out to embrace the fairy tale aspect of Shakespeare’s convoluted love story while not shying away from its contradictions. The vast and elegant scenic space, with simple gestures to denote change, asked the costumes to create specificity in locale, mood, and temperature. It was a process of collaborative discovery, stemming organically from a focus on character and storytelling to then find its ways into period references. The world aims to have an elegant bohemian feel, loosely rooted in the early 1900s for the characters in France and going into a freer silhouette with a warmer, more colorful palette for Italy.
For most regional theaters, early 2022 was the beginning of a return to making theater post-pandemic. Along with a heightened safety protocol, this design process was shaped by the reduced availability of fabrics and materials due to supply chain shortages, and by limited residencies periods. The previous two years had taught me a lot about effectively designing and communicating remotely, but the joy of being back in the fitting room in person sealed the urgency to create live and the importance of time spent with performers, drapers, and tailors. I rely greatly on talented artisans and technicians to interpret my designs and cherish the ways in which a sketch can be a starting point for a collaboratively created show. It was serendipitous that one of draper Maggie Hofmann’s specialty was smocking (she published a book on it!), a technique I’d wanted to feature in Helena’s mourning dress. Her expertise gave us the ability to create a costume with an enormous amount of detail, contrast, and elegance, well beyond what I imagine might be achievable with our time and resources. Those partnerships are at the core of a successful design process.
