Project 3: Option #4 Design Scenery

For project 3 I have decided to do Option 4 and design a certain piece of scenery from a Shakespeare play. I have chosen the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar and the scene I chose from the play is scene depicting the assassination of Julius Caesar. The reason I have chosen to do the Julius Caesar play over other Shakespeare plays is unlike the others, Julius Caesar depicts real events in history and not fictional material and I can most relate to and imagine Julius Caesar material. Another reason I have chosen Julius Caesar is because I am a history major and because I am a history major I truly enjoy Roman history and its effects on the rest of the world. The life and death of Julius Caesar is an important time in history and altered the rest of Roman history up to the Roman Empire's demise in the fifth century. Julius Caesar had claimed himself emperor and many senators in the Roman Senate did not approve of this including Julius Caesar's good friend Brutus. These many senators felt they had no other choice but to assassinate Julius Caesar in order to save the Roman Republic. As Julius Caesar entered the Senate hall one day, Brutus and the other Senators assassinated Julius Caesar by stabbing him to death with their daggers. This act of violence began a long and bloody civil war to win the heart of Rome itself.

My scenery design of the assassination scene from the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar took place on 18"x 12" drawing paper that way details could be distinguished much clearer. Originally I was going to go with doing Julius Caesar in 1920's gangster style scenery; however, my lack of knowledge of this era and an inefficient ability to connect the story to the time era I was unable to make this happen. Instead I continued with the original story line with the Roman scenery, but I designed it to how I imagined the stage would look if I was conducting the play. I first reduced the scene design to a 13.5"x 7.5" drawing. I made the background of the stage large gray stone pieces to depict Roman style walls. The floor is also made of stone; however, the stones are smaller in size compared to the wall and are a darker shade of gray. The next items I added to the design are the two small, short columns divided up one on each side of the stage. These columns are made of small white stones in the shape of cinder blocks, and on top of these columns are gold colored pots that contain small plants or shrubs inside to add color and beauty to the scene. Next I designed the stage to be four feet off the ground and is colored red to also bring the beauty out in the scene. Connecting the stage to the stone floor are three separate flights of stairs: two of the stairs are in front of the side entryways and are a light brown color, and the middle stairs is much larger than the other two is designed in a gold color signifying importance. The three entryways are designed with the most importance in the scene. The two side entryways are smaller than the middle entryway, they are dark behind them, and made for entrances such as the Senators creeping up on Julius Caesar. The middle entryway clearly draws the most attention to the scene. On the sides of the entry are two round, white columns that are wrap in a gold colored swirl all the way to the top where a long flat stone connects the two columns. The middle entryway can serve two purposes: one being just being an entry and exit spot where Senators enter or exit the Senate hall, second a small chair or throne can be placed in front of the entryway and the spot becomes the backdrop where Julius Caesar sits on his throne at the Senate with the gold stairs in front of him. This is how I would design the assassination scene for the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar.