Rationale

We have made certain choices when we did our project, and here is an explanation for these choices.

We decided to make the illustration on the front cover of a broken chain to symbolize the Chain of Being. The Chain of Being is the hierarchical structure of all matter and life, according to people of the Elizabethan era. According to legend, an attempt to break the Chain causes disorder and chaos. The play, Macbeth, reflects on William Shakespeare's belief in the Chain of Being. On the front, we will also include the word “Playbill” in bold, in order for it to stand out and catch attention. We will also add “Macbeth” so that when the reader looks into our Playbill, they are aware of who we are talking about from the play. We will also add the words, ¨Chain of Being,¨ over the Chain itself to make it clear that the Chain symbolizes the Chain of Being. At the top, we will also add something about our stage being on Broadway.

Early on in the play, Macbeth, who is a Scottish thane and a soldier, murders King Duncan. As a result, numerous strange things began to happen, such as the sky looking like it is night time when it is actually the middle of the day, a mousing owl attacking and killing a falcon, and King Duncan´s royal horses going wild. These strange events are an effect of the Chain of Being getting broken.

We decided to show the play on a Broadway stage and include Broadway actors as the roles because Broadway is a very appropriate place to show the play. Broadway is a dramatic setting and will be able to capture all of the details of the scenes. Broadway is also an extremely popular play company. Numerous famous plays, like The Book Of Mormon, Les Misérables, Wicked, and The Phantom Of The Opera, were performed on a Broadway stage. We think that Broadway performance would be the most fitting for a Shakespeare play.

We also decided to include a picture of the theater and a description of the parts of the theater to provide an analysis of the things that affect the play. The music and lighting have a huge effect on the mood of the play. The music sets the mood for the play. Dramatic, suspenseful music adds suspense for a suspenseful scene, and upbeat music adds an extra good feeling to a happy scene.

The lighting also affects the mood of the play. Lack of lighting creates an ominous mood, and a lot of lighting provides an upbeat, happy mood. Lighting can also be used to show whether or not it is daytime or nighttime in a play, and whether the characters are in a dark room or not.

In conclusion, these are the explanations for the choices we made in our project. We included an explanation for the cover, the stage, the choice of actors, and the stage description in our playbill.  We tried to think of a good explanation for each of our choices. We think that these explanations turned out good, and we hope that they did turn out good.

In English class we are doing a project on Macbeth. My partner Sharron and I have decided to do a playbill on Macbeth the play. We are choosing to make a Theatrical Playbill with a mask of symbolic representation of Macbeth. We are choosing to do this because we want to show the play an artist's point of view. We also want the play to stick out by what people see and read. We also liked to be the second people to create a playbill, we like to be different.Our playbill is centered around the play Macbeth; therefore we decide to have a theme for our playbill. For our playbill we have decided to have Shakespeare an anniversary of all his most famous plays. The ads will be of: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. We chose those plays because it includes death and love in its purest form. Most of Shakespeare's plays have a hate or love or disruption of some kind.In Macbeth it has lots of hate of oneself and disruption of nature, and in our playbill we wanted to reflect on that a lot.

As you know for every playbill, the cover is everything. We decided for our cover that we wanted to have a metaphor for what you see isn't, what you get. With that saying, we decided to also use a quote from the book. We chose Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to be the metaphor, because those characters changed the most. Lady Macbeth is a lady and ladies back then were supposed to be innocent, but she wasn't after they killed Macduff. We wanted her to look the most out of ordinary. One side has all her makeup and she looks perfect. Then the other side shows her true self, she is crying and broken. Macbeth was a tough person before he killed all his friends and people he was supposed to guard, so he has less going on on his face. One side has a mark that's gray and the other side looks like he is going threw war. We wanted our cover to reflect the metaphor of the whole play.

The purpose of this project was to show our knowledge of Macbeth in a creative outlet. My partner was William. We decided that we would start with the idea for the cover first. We had a debate between a sea turning red, a hand reaching for a dagger, or a combination of both. We then finally decided to do Macbeth’s hand reaching for the dagger because it was our favorite scene. We did not  incorporate the sea because there would be too much going on at once. With the cover, we decided to have it hand-drawn because we thought it would be the easiest to do it in that manner. We then moved on to the characters. We decided to completely make up the characters so that we could be super creative with their bios. We also decided to have Macbeth performed at the Arden Theatre because it’s a local theater we would like to support. After that, we decided who would do what and when they should do it with a calendar that we made.

Shilo William

• character descriptions and drawings - description and drawings of stages

• design layout - summary

• characters bio - design layout

• rationale   - rationale

• advertisements - some of the character description

We chose Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, The Witches, and Macduff to create descriptions and drawings for because they are all very important aspects of the play. They cause conflict, insanity, etc. The settings we chose are as follows: outside Macbeth’s castle before and after Duncan’s death, Macbeth’s castle, Macduff’s castle, cave where the witches were hiding, murder scene of Duncan, and forest where Banquo and Fleance were pursued (war ground is the same forest). We choose these because these were the main settings throughout the play. Typically speaking, people only watch a play when they already know the story behind it. There is a summary found on the back of the playbill, but it is only a general overview.

With the advertisements, we wanted to showcase the local bars, pubs, restaurants, and stores in the Arden Theatre area because it made the most sense. We wouldn’t want to advertise something in Columbus, Ohio when we are in Philadelphia. Also I have been to the Arden Theatre before and I have seen some the advertisements they have, which were all local shops and such in the area.

The stage is designed for everyone in the room to be able to see the action. It consists of course of the main stage, curtains in the front for scene changes, a screen as the backdrop for easy background changes, and four columns of seats with exits in between each.

The audience is welcomed into the production by the Rota Fortunae, or wheel of fortune. As the opening set, it is meant to reappear whenever Macbeth does something to change his fate. The wheel is shown each time with a rotating animation created with the screen backdrop. The shield with the "M" represents Macbeth. Whenever something good happens to him, his shield slowly moves toward the top of the wheel. Whenever something bad happens, his shield starts to rotate to the bottom. When his life comes to an end, the shield falls off of the wheel.

We looked at several examples of different playbills to base the design and layout of the components. After trying google presentations, we changed to using lucidpress. We found easier to set up the playbill and it looks nicer. This was pretty much our decision-making process.

https://www.lucidpress.com/documents/edit/b13c791d-5601-49f1-b1d8-f5fc35fec47f#?=undefined 

We chose to do a Playbill for a few reasons. First, it’s an element to the play that can’t be forgotten. Every time a play is scene, the audience receives a Playbill. Therefore, we believe it’s more connected to reality than doing a game or other formats. Second, it’s a straightforward way to explain the play and everything we have learned from it. Third, the creativity that can be expressed in a Playbill really appealed to us. There were so many ways to make it our own and it was fun to organize and format every included element.

Every element of our playbill relates back to the ideas and elements of Macbeth. First, our cover says that our version is shown at The Globe Theater. We decided on this theater because it was one of the main theaters that Shakespeare's plays were performed. As this is a Shakespeare play, we thought it would be a suitable stage. The image on our cover has an outline of Macbeth’s face. But there are more elements to the cover. First, there is a floating bloody dagger to represent the bloody dagger hallucination from act 2 scene 1. Second, there’s an image of a crown in the window to represent Macbeth’s longing to become king and how it is within reach. Third, in the other window there is a star and a fire. This represents the quote from Macbeth in act 1, scene 4 when he says “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

Next, we chose the actors to play the characters. All of the actors were chosen based on the roles they typically play. Some actors are known to play leads well, so we chose them for Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Banquo. Some actors are also good at playing certain types of roles. For instance, Donald Sutherland is playing King Duncan due to his past experiences of playing kings and because he looks older and wise. The actresses to play the witches were chosen due to their past experiences of playing witch-like roles.

Our ads were based on common things of the time. For example, one of our ads is for the “best ruffs in England”. A ruff is a piece of clothing, somewhat similar to a scarf, that both men and women wore in Elizabethan times. The second ad is for another Shakespeare play called, The Tempest. Typically playbills have ads for similar productions so we thought The Tempest would be perfect.   

Every act summary was written based on notes taken for each act. The main events were explained so that the reader can follow along through the play if they find themselves lost. We also explained crucial elements that could be easily missed. Costumes were chosen based on typical costumes in Shakespearean plays. Macbeth has an outfit for the beginning when he was a soldier, as this doesn’t require royal garb. When he is king he wears a crown and more royal looking capes. Lady Macbeth wears a gown the whole play, as this is common for a wealthy woman of the time. King Duncan wears a crown and royal cape for the extension of his life in the play. Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, and Fleance all wear similar clothing typical for a wealthy man of the time. As they aren’t kings, they don’t wear capes but since they’re wealthier they still wear nice clothing. The murderers all wear black clothing to show contrast with the other characters and disguise on their mission. The witches wear long black capes and have beards, as described in the first scene of the play.

Sydney and I chose to create a game board as a way to reflect our knowledge on the Macbeth play because we thought it would be both interesting and informative.The game is a mixture of a trivia game and a common Candy Land style game board. We decided to make the game this way because we figured it would be more interactive than a simple, long and boring old-fashioned game. We thought this would also be a good way to get people thinking outside of the box.

One way we proved our understanding of the play was by using trivia and prophecy cards to embrace the usage of the paradoxes, the prophecies and the tragedies that occurred throughout the play. The two main characters frequently used throughout the game were Macbeth and Banquo. We chose to use those to characters in specific because they were, in our opinion, the two protagonists of the play.

Some of the “prophecy cards” featured include the paradoxes Banquo received from the three weird sisters. We incorporated these specific paradoxes because in the game you can either move forward or backwards. Either way you moved you were always closer yet farther away. In addition we included events that Macbeth came across all through the play. Such as when he became King or when he killed Duncan. We involved events like these because they were the most significant in the changing of characterization we saw in Macbeth.

Another way we demonstrated our knowledge was by making a “metaphoric” board. The board is colored red to create the bloody atmosphere portrayed in the play. Further, the board has 8 spaces titled “Banquo”. This represents the last apparition Macbeth saw — Banquo’s line of infinite Kings. Moreover, we included 3 “Macbeth” spots that represent the repetition of 3’s. There were 3 main witches, 3 prophecies, 3 apparitions and the repeatings of idiocy. Idiocy is the act of really stupid behavior. Macbeth killed Duncan — which in our opinion was insane — this drove him to begin hallucinating weird things. (ex. II.2.44-46 “Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house; ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’”) This quote is also foreshadowing the ending of the play where Macbeth is murdered.

Last but not least, we created a dungeon space. It is similar to the Monopoly’s “JAIL” section and plays a similar role. We included this space on this game board because it refers back to “The Stanford Experiment”. As time went on Lady Macbeth turned Macbeth from good to evil. He was influenced once and took the power to his head, which left Lady Macbeth uncontrollable of his actions. Additionally, Lady Macbeth created a mental prison for herself. She held on to dark secrets and information which made her start to act jittery and insane.

Overall, we generally determined that this would be the most efficient way to show our creative skills and comprehension of the wonderful yet dreadful “Macbeth” play.

My Partner's Blog: Sydney Rogers

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1wnJPhjgUVbLXqpfXVsqFDILSZcmgUAHUqsELl6AARS8/edit?usp=sharing

Macbeth Game

Our group made a game about Macbeth’s life. In the game you become Macbeth and make the decisions we saw he had to make in the story for him. You begin the game by reading the first scenario and question and then choosing one of the answers. Each answer will be a link to a new slide where you will read another scenario and answer another question. Eventually you will reach a point where you win and stay king forever or die and someone else becomes king.

The reason we made a game like this was so everyone could have a fun interesting experience where you get to become Macbeth. It’s a unique experience to try to make the decisions that Macbeth had to make. While many people in the class were saying that the decisions Macbeth was making were stupid now they have the chance to be put into the same scenario with one major goal and the odds strongly against them like they were for Macbeth.

While we made a way that you could make the decisions Macbeth did there are also many ways to select a new approach in an effort to become king. One of the major things you could do began from the first question you see; do you take the witches seriously? Should you select no you have taken a whole different course than Macbeth and the questions you are asked are different. Instead of following a Macbeth approach where you can decide to kill the king and you focus much more on Malcolm, because he becomes king (as his father of course made him heir). You focus on becoming his prince so that you eventually take over and you also get the option at a point of killing him as to become king. All the things that took place here are what we expect would happen had Macbeth made this decision.

If you take the witches seriously it becomes a lot more straightforward. You can decide if you should kill the king or wait for fate (just like Macbeth did in the story). If you decide to kill the king you can second guess yourself like Macbeth did for a little bit or just be tough and kill the king. Then should you kill the king you move on to Banquo and you must decide if it is necessary that he be killed. He could be your best friend, but he could also be a threat. The next thing that will come up is Macduff. He doesn’t attend your celebration as well and you have to decide if he should be killed. If you don’t he goes off to England to find Malcolm and comes back to fight you. Finally you have the choice of whether or not to help your people. If you don’t, everyone hates you even more than they already do and turn on you. If you do help them they rise up and beat England. This entire part is similar to the book and should you stray from what Macbeth does the results are very predictable.

The entire game can take between three and ten questions depending on your choices. Normally it will be somewhere in the middle. The odds of winning are very low, because Macbeth’s odds at becoming king and remaining king are very low. We also wanted to include a reward. Should the class win the game when we present, our group will bring in some prize (dessert) to be handed out the next day or two days later at lunch. The final thing we wanted to do was make a video around each scenario for the classes entertainment and to enhance our overall project.

My partners pages:

Raymond

How the video came to life!

For our project, Ashton and I chose to do a Video Scene Depiction. We reenacted the scene, The Murder of Banquo. This scene takes place on Act 3 scene 4. We had to recreate the scene in our own words by using the language of Macbeth. We chose to pursue this scene because it is one of the most action packed scenes in the play and we thought it would be interesting to act this scene out. We start the scene with the three murderers, Ashton, Brendon, and, Leo. They were sent by Macbeth, Zaire, to Kill Banquo, Justin, and Fleance, Raymond. The third murder approaches the two original murders. He explains that Macbeth has sent him to help them with the deed. Suddenly, One of the murderers notices Banquo and Fleance approaching them. The murderers confronts Banquo and Fleance for a show down! But the numbers were too much for Banquo that lead to his downfall and Fleance escapes.

  Original idea

When we first decided to do this project, we wanted to design a board game for the whole class to play. We didn’t have any ideas for the objective of the game. This was our initial plan but it went downhill. We then decided to do an even more interesting project for the both of us. This is when we decided to do a Video Scene Depiction. Ashton suggested to do the murder scene of Banquo. Then we both agreed to pursue that scene. But there was some obstacles  we needed to overcome. First we had to redo our Check point #1 since we changed our idea. After we did that, We also had to find extra support. So we asked our friends to make appearances in it as well. Now that we had our actors and our scene, We also needed to design a script. After we designed the script it was time to create the film!

Supporters

      For our video, We had supporters to play some extra roles. I would recommend giving them extra credit for being supportive to other students. They were willing to take time out of their own project schedule to be supportive to their fellow classmates. The names of these supporters are Raymond, Brendon, Leo, and Zaire. We all agreed to help each other prepare each other’s projects. We all wanted to take time out of our own project to help each other.  I personally believe that every one of these supporters should receive extra credit because of their encouragement, Commitment, and, Leadership.

Conclusion

    In conclusion, We enjoyed doing this project and we hope you will prepare another project in the future. For the next book we will be reading, We should have different options such as writing our own version of the book or creating a continuation of the book. If we do get another creative project, I would recommend giving us the same amount of time as you did for this project. I would also recommend putting us in groups of four just in case it is a major project. I enjoyed doing this project because, it helped show the teamwork of the project.