STAGING MACBETH.
Bring the play alive through creative design tasks.
- Jump to
- Photos
- Poster Design
- Costume Design
- Set Design
What does it mean to stage Macbeth? Bring the play alive for your students with the activities below, encouraging them to consider the text from a fresh angle.
PHOTOS
Use these photos to spark the imagination of your class while diving into the activities on this page.
The photos are from previous productions of Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe, plus additional inspiration from previous Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank productions.
DESIGN A SHOW POSTER
Get the pens and pencils out: either individually or in small groups, students can use their knowledge of the play to produce a show poster for this year’s performance of Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe.
The Audience
The audience for this production will mainly be schools and young people from across London and Birmingham, so the poster must appeal to them. The play was written several hundred years ago, but students can choose any setting they think will engage this audience. Our production is contemporary, but students can take inspiration from any time period.
Interpretation
When a play is planned by a theatre (like Shakespeare’s Globe), an important task is to prepare an eye-catching poster to advertise the production and also to form the cover for the programme.
You might find it helpful to search Google images for “Macbeth theatre posters” to find some striking examples to show your class. What do they have in common? What elements of the play do they choose to include – or ignore?
Designers often create mood boards to help inspire their designs. You could share our Macbeth moodboards with your class to help them develop their ideas:
Activity 1
Students can choose one of the poster designs above and use sticky notes to show how they think the images, the colours and the words used link to the play.
Activity 2
Students design their own poster for the play. Remember that posters will need to be eye-catching and provide an idea of what happens in the play.
We’d love to see your posters
Take a photograph of your class’s hand-made design or share a JPEG/PDF of their digital art with us on social media. Tag us on X and Instagram @The_Globe and use #PlayingShakespeare so we can see your posters.
TOP 5 TIPS FOR DESIGNING A POSTER
1. You need to make it impactful so that it immediately grabs the attention of the viewer.
2. You need to be as bold and creative as possible so that it is unique from any competition.
3. You need to make sure that all the information can be read clearly so that no important details about dates or times are lost.
4. You need to think about who the poster is aimed for and therefore target it for that particular market.
5. You need to consider the subject matter for your poster. So you need to research the topic and understand it before you begin designing.
DESIGN A COSTUME
Costume Design is an important part of creating meaning in a theatrical show. A costume can tell the audience a lot about a character, such as their job, social status, and personality. Furthermore, costumes normally comment on the social, historical, and cultural context of the production.
A good costume can highlight themes in the play, as well as add layers of meaning to the production/text.
Activity 1
Students can imagine that they’re costume designers for the day. The director wants them to design costumes for the witches and Macbeth. The play will be sent in a future dystopian society. Encourage students to annotate their designs and explain the design choices they have made.
Activity 2
Students should design costumes for the witches and the Macbeths. They should annotate their designs explaining the following:
- The era of their costume
- How the costumes relate to the themes in the play
- What they would like the audience reaction to be when they see the costumes
Additional Resources:
DESIGN A SHOW POSTER
Each production at the Globe will have its own message and intention. One of the ways we convey these messages (be it the location, time period or atmosphere of the play) is through set design.
Activity
Students will come up with a design for the upcoming production of Macbeth.
The Globe stage itself is very unique and already has a lot of detail and character. It is a set designer’s role to transform the space to represent the varying locations where Shakespeare’s plays are set.
The Audience
The audience for this production will mainly be schools and young people. Students therefore need to design a set that reflects this. The set needs to be exciting and should have some elements, colours, or shapes that a young audience can relate to. It also needs to fit within the existing Globe space.
The Play
Macbeth is set in Scotland and England. The play opens in a ‘desert place’ during a thunderstorm, and throughout the play there are references to the natural world. However, much action also takes place indoors: in Macbeth’s castle in Inverness and later the royal palace in Dunsinane. A lot of this also takes place under cover of darkness.
The Globe Theatre
The Globe is a unique playing space, with a number of special features which makes it different from a conventional theatre. Therefore these features must be considered when designing a set. For example:
- It is outdoors rather than indoors
- It has two very large pillars on the left and right hand sides of the stage
- It has a balcony on the stage
- It has seated audience on three sides and a central area where the audience stand (also called ‘the yard’)
- The actors are able to walk through the yard to enter the stage.
See the Additional Resources for a scaled front-on drawing of the stage, also called a Front Elevation.
