Color-coded programs sort the audience in this immigration-themed Shakespeare concert, where special galleries serve as stages for rotating numbers.
Every two years, Houghton Library hosts the Hyperion Shakespeare Company for Bard in the Yard, a thematic scene recital that exploits the theatrical potential of Houghton special collections galleries to foster intimacy between student thespians and the Greater Boston arts community at large. Attendance is free, but capped through an online RSVP form. The unsuspecting audience gathers in a spacious reception room downstairs for the introduction and finale, but is divided into smaller groups for the middle numbers upstairs. To make the process of sorting the audience more efficient, I proposed that in addition to library chaperones, the sorting be done through color-coded programs.
Ivy League Players
I created a program template that could be customized according to the recital theme. (in 2018, it was immigration). My design concept conflated the ivied Yard and the laurel wreaths once worn by Shakespearean actors. A festive headband at a craft store provided the basis for a vector illustration made with the freeform gradient tool that Adobe had recently introduced. I did several value studies in green, before switching to grayscale to make the color-coded programs unambiguous. As one of the sketches ("What country is this?") was blocked by Hyperion as a passport inspection scene, I introduced descriptive subtitles on the program and a stamp of Shakespeare to hint at the theme.
Play Excerpts
Undergraduate wunderkind Mateo Lincoln composed the original music and put together a string ensemble for all the musical interludes downstairs and up.
The audience gathers in the Edison Newman room for the opening number; Hyperion Shakespeare Company Players perform in the upstairs galleries in "Let him do his spite" (Othello) and "I can speak English lord" (Henry IV.1)
