In our English 1 class, we read Macbeth for a majority of our second quarter. My partner,Tyria Brown Smith, and I decided to make a theatrical playbill to display what we read in the play. On the front page is the cover. I drew three mouths to represent the three witches, who influenced Macbeth’s decisions throughout the play. There is an ear ,at the side of the cover, that is a symbol for Macbeth’s ear . I drew the words “Macbeth” in a speech bubble starting at the ear to the mouths to indicate the witches whispering to him. Tyria did the summary of the plot. She explained how Macbeth went from being one of the most honorable person in Scotland to the most hated tyrant.

We made this project because we thought it would be easy to understand and we could do alot with it creatively. There was much room for us to be imaginative. For example our character list had pictures next to every character, Some characters looked more serious and some were completely goofy. All the characters had different shaped heads to make it more interesting.  We also used word play for the advertisements to make the playbill more commercial.

   Chris Jacobs and I, had a great time doing this project. Our video project is a “vlog” or “video blog” based on Act 5 Scene 1 of the play written by Shakespeare’s, “Macbeth”.  Act 5 Scene 1 is the scene that has Lady Macbeth's doctor and her gentle woman watching as she sleepwalks around and talks about all of the many murders Macbeth and her have been responsible for. We decided to make this parody scene a video because we feel as though that's the best way people will understand it and take it in. Adding comedy into the scene will make it more interesting and understandable compared to if we just read in old english, verbatim from the book. This scene is very important because it shows how Lady Macbeth switched up from being nonchalant about the murders to been guilt stricken in her sleep walk. It's also the scene that she confesses her murders accidentally. The scene takes place in her bedroom where her caregivers are watching afar as she walks around talking to herself about the murderers and goes to wash her hands of all the “blood” that is there in her mind, which is a call back to an earlier scene where Macbeth was trying to wash his hands of all the “blood” that represented his guilt about the murders. The blood isn’t physically there, but metaphorically because they feel as though the sin of murdering those people will never go away and they’re stuck with the guilt forever.  This scene affects the rest of the play in a not so significant way in the actual book, but shows the audience why Lady Macbeth committed suicide in the movie even if its skimmed over in the book.  

We decided to do a parody because we found that if we read the lines verbatim it would honestly seem really boring and nobody would want to watch someone just read that considering that scene in general isn't all that visually appealing. We will give the scene a comedic effect so it can actually have something for people to look at and really understand deeply. We tried our best with the environment and props to make the scene as realistic as possible. In drama we learned the different skills of acting so we applied it to the scene. Some of the skills are facing the audience, establishing the environment, having a goal, and projecting our voices. Our favorite part of filming this is how we completely changed the language of the scene from old english to modern American English. We switched up the words a bit so that it still made sense in the context that the original version was, but in a way that more people would understand without it having to be explained. We designed it in a vlog type of video because that’s what a lot of people are doing these days and we feel as though it would be a lot funnier that way.

Justine and I made a board game that related to Macbeth. In Macbeth, many characters are fighting to be king. Some make noble decisions, while others take the dark path to the top. Macbeth chose to take the sinful way to the top which resulted in his downfall. Macbeth heard of the prophecies and decided to force his way up. He felt that he had no choice because of his “vaulting ambition”. So he went down a horrible path which ultimately resulted in his downfall. He killed the prior king, King Duncan, and blamed it on his servants, then killed them too. Duncan’s sons decide to flee because they were afraid for their lives and they thought they would be next on the murder list. No one suspects Macbeth and he is crowned king. Of course, there are always repercussions for evil choices. So, Macbeth realized that although he would be king, his children won’t be king because Banquo’s children are destined to be king. Again, Macbeth decides to do a sinful thing to get what he wants. He kills his best friend Banquo. As Macbeth was doing all these things, he failed to rule his kingdom properly which resulting in his own people rebelling against him. He loses the fight and dies. This is one example of what could happen after making bad choices to get what you want. This is the whole objective of our game, as six players race on the way to Dunsinane. Malcolm, who was the king’s son, and next in line, became king because Macbeth was killed. He did not kill anyone to become king, and he was more noble about being king. So, in our game you can either be more noble, somewhat like Malcolm, or you can be evil, like Macbeth and kill everyone in your way.

Some of the cards that we have in our game, relate to many things from the book. Someone of the cards relate to 3,because 3 is a recurring theme in Macbeth. There are also a lot of cards that can hurt or aid you in the ways of slumber. There are also more exact cards that relate more towards the book. One the of cards talks about the porter and how he was drunk and how that related to the player. Most of the repercussion cards (the cards you have to pick up if you choose the evil path) are all something that might have happened to Macbeth. Macbeth saw the ghost of Banquo, someone he had killed, he that is somewhat similar to one of the cards in our game.  All of the cards relate to the play in someway. It might be a bit more abstract than others, but they are related. Also, the idea of fate cards are related to Macbeth, because Macbeth is either letting fate lead him or he is fighting fate. Some in our game, the fate cards lead you in the way it wants to lead you, because it is fate. Our game is related to Macbeth, because of the overall idea of the game, to become the king of Scotland first, and all of the cards that come from something in the play.

For our project, Isabella and I decided to make a diorama of one of the most important scenes in Macbeth: the soldiers from Malcolm’s army marching up to Dunsinane castle using Birnam wood as camouflage. Throughout the play, Macbeth repeatedly makes his decisions based on prophecies that three witches give him. After Macbeth becomes King of Scotland by murdering the King Duncan, he worries that his rule might be taken from him by King Duncan's heir, Malcolm. He confronts the witches and demands they give him the answers he seeks, and the witches tell Macbeth "be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.” (IV.1.103-107) When Malcolm’s army uses the forest for cover, Macbeth sees Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane castle and knows that his time as King is now limited.

We decided to recreate the scenes with the soldiers holding trees marching up the hill with tiny trees and gluing some foliage onto their backs. The hill is made out of styrofoam, play doh and felt. We decided to make the background get darker as it neared to the castle to symbolize that the castle was an evil place.

recently finished reading Macbeth in English Class. Once we were finished with Macbeth we were assigned to do a creative project. For our project we chose to make a playbill. This playbill would be pretty simple so that we would have time and room to add on some extra elements to make it more realistic and convincing.

I mostly did  the written elements while my partner Jasir did the artistic components. To make the cast list I looked for actors who were known for playing characters with similar personalities to those of the characters of Macbeth. One exception to this rule was casting Ian Mckellen as Macbeth. I chose to do this because he is an actor who is known for his spectacular portrayals of Macbeth. The summary of the play is pretty self explanatory, I just gave some background information about the show. I omitted any pieces of information that could ruin the ending of the show. The artwork for the Macbeth playbill came with great ease when picking the cover I wanted to in capture the true meaning of the play and what better way for the title to be the star of the play.