Tagged behind the scenes

Drew Facey, Costume Designer for The Merchant of Venice, shares the images he used for inspiration to create the wardrobe of three characters in the play – Antonio, Bassanio and Portia.

Even though the festival runs during the summer months, the preparation for a season begins as soon as one ends. Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival admin staff are on duty year round, piecing together every part of what makes an enjoyable summer for our patrons, new and experienced!

Back in February we went to David Cooper’s East Vancouver photography studio to shoot our ‘advance photography’ images for the 2014 Bard season. We’ve had a lot of lovely feedback on the images so we thought we’d give you a behind the scenes look at how they were created!

David Cooper on the creative process & challenges:

Auditioning at Bard is unlike other theatre companies: there’s a lot of scheduling and cooperation involved because of our having two repertory companies, Mainstage and Studio Stage, and the fact that actors need to fit two roles. 

The process begins nearly a year in advance of the upcoming season – Bard’s general audition notice goes out in June and general auditions are held in July. We receive resumes year-round and these are kept on file until the creative team is ready to go through them.