For this project, I chose to create a costume rendering portfolio for Hamlet. I chose to do costuming for Shakespeare because costumes have historically been incredibly important to Shakespeare’s plays. In Elizabethan England, a lot of the draw of the theatre would have been to see the glorious costumes the actors wore. The clothes would have been grand and incredibly expensive.

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Though costuming can be very helpful in informing setting or time, I wanted to focus on highlighting character, so I chose to do a blend of both Tudor/Elizabethan and more modern clothing, in order to incorporate aspects from both times to best suit the characters. I also think the aesthetic effect of the temporal blend is really interesting, and allows for a lot of creativity in the costuming process.

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Shakespeare never wrote his plays to simply be read; he wrote them to be performed. When the words leave the page, and characters become people, that is when Shakespeare is at its

best. Through this project I hope to emphasize the importance of not only hearing Shakespeare, but seeing it as well.

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