My independent study project, which will be performed March 1-4, 2007, is to direct a 45-minute selection from William Shakespeare's Othello. I have not yet decided the method in which I will direct the piece, nor have I selected the particular portions of the play which will be presented, but I would like to give the audience a sense of the tragic arc which plays itself out throughout the course of this five-act masterpiece. It will be a challenge to do so in a forty-five minute time span, but I believe myself up to fulfilling my own expectations.

I am toying with several options in which to present my piece. One is to edit the play itself down to 45-minutes, keeping with the major conflict of the play in order to eliminate most of the subplots which take up time. I am also thinking of combining this option, if I choose, with a symbolistic representation of the piece in which the characters will be costumed in accordance with their moral constitution. For example, Desdemona will always appear in white clothing since she is a pure, innocent woman; Iago will be costumed in black due to his evil nature; and Othello would change from white costuming to a very dark shade of grey as his purity and faith in his wife is tainted by Iago. Another option which I am considering is to focus solely on the conflicts amongst Iago, Othello, and Desdemona, and this would be played out chiefly in monologues and duo scenes. This poses the bigger challenge to me of the two options, as I will have to maintain the integrity of the play using approximately one-fifth of the characters originally scripted by Shakespeare, and I would be using smaller groups of characters, which causes some difficulties in having the play make sense to the audience, especially the uninitiated audience.

I chose to do this project because this is, to me, the culmination of my studies as a theatre arts major, especially one who respects and appreciates the work of William Shakespeare as much as I do. Othello is also my favorite Shakespearean play, and I believe it to be one full of complexities which oftentimes get overlooked in favor of more simplistic, surface analyses of the racial tensions between Othello and the predominately white society in which this production is set. I hope I can do this brilliant piece of dramatic fiction justice and help the Monmouth College community to more fully understand the complex nature of Shakespeare: a man whose writing is multi-faceted and resonates deeply with humanity, even four hundred years after his death.