Shakespeare and Costume in Practice

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.

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.