Introduction

For this project, we are doing the tempest by William Shakespeare.

The tempest starts with a ship in the middle of a violent sea storm and a very distressed ship crew. They're all bracing themselves for the ship crash; some of the crew are bravely carrying on with keeping the ship sailing whilst others have completely given up hope and are saying their prayers. Aboard are alonso the king of Naples with his family and staff and the cabin crew (obviously). The ship wrecks and watching from a distance are prospero and his daughter, Miranda. It turns out that prospero made the  whole storm happen and this confuses Miranda and so he is left with no other choice but to explain why he's doing this. He reveals to her that twelve years ago, he was the king of naples and his jealous brother, Antonio seized the throne from him and it was taken over by alonso. Prospero was banished to the island with Miranda who was a baby at the time and with the help of gonzalo, he snuck his magic books and food with him. Upon his arrival at the island, he made caliban (who was the only inhabitant at the time) his servant, and freed a spirit called ariel who was trapped inside a tree and when prospero freed him, he made ariel swear to serve him forever. Ariel was trapped in the tree by a witch called sycorax who was caliban's mother who was dead by the time all this happened.

Anyway, the ship is wrecked on the island and everybody is alive and well but they're all a bit separated. Alonso can't find his son, Ferdinand and assumes he's dead but he was actually just washed up on another part of the island. Ferdinand meets Miranda and the instantly fall in love, but Ferdinand is the only man (apart from her father and caliban) she's ever seen. Ferdinand meets prospero who makes him help out and ariel sucks up to Ferdinand in hope that he frees him but Ferdinand says he will on the condition that ariel keeps the rest of the people from the ship safe.
Ariel does as he is told and leads the group to where Ferdinand and prospero and Miranda are. On their way there, Antonio and Sebastian plan to kill alonso so that sebastian can have the throne. Trinculo (the jester) and stephano (the butler) wander around the island and caliban forms a group with them to overthrow prospero so that caliban can become the ruler of the island and ariel tells prospero about their plan. The triad get drunk and set off for prospero's place but they get chased away by the spirits of the island who are in the form of dogs.
Ariel brings them all to prospero's place and he reveals himself to everyone. He forgives his brother and makes plans to return back home, gives his blessing to Miranda and Ferdinand to get married (after 24 hours. Honestly, you'd think this is a Disney princess story), ariel is set free, the triad are forgiven  the ship turns put to be in pristine condition despite being battered and wrecked in a sea storm and they all have a party and live happily ever after.

The end.


So we are doing this play in a punk and hippie style. The people from the mainland (the wrecked ones) are going to have punkish costumes; heavy make up, big hair, leather and studs, you name it. The island people and spirits are going to be more hippie and connected to nature with flowers in their hair and not many clothes on. The island is a magical place and their costumes are going to reflect that.

In terms of performances, we are doing one in the new theatre at school and another outside at the Brighton fringe.