PATRICK SOMERVILLE: The Traveling Symphony is a way of life,
but it's a way to try to tell the story
of how amazing performance can be,
especially when you don't have any at your disposal.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The Traveling Symphony is a group of 24 people
from all over the place, who've come together
because they want to put on plays for people.
They've been going around and around Lake Michigan
in a big circle, every year for the last 20 years.
Every year, they do a different Shakespeare play.
We're the Traveling Symphony. We travel for a reason.
Just trying to make the world make sense for a minute.
And I think "Survival is insufficient"
as a motto for the Traveling Symphony
is all about asking what's important.
What do we need?
We're humans, and we're ingenious.
And you create communities,
and there are more evolved ways of living than the Traveling Symphony lives.
And I think that they've chosen this nomadic lifestyle
as testament to their passion and dedication to their art.
Like, it's almost hard to relate
to how much they love what they do,
and how much it sustains and keeps them alive.
I was trying to make sure that the Symphony didn't turn into
something we had seen before.
That they would just be like any of us, who,
like we're out here in a field filming,
because we have a passion for creative material.
The locations team and the set dressing team are incredible.
And it's just so beautiful having all of these trees
and like this luscious landscape around us.
And then having Winnipegs that have been changed into carts,
and like, just the creativity of the set dressing team
are amazing, and I'm constantly astounded by all of it.
RUTH AMMON: With the vehicles themselves,
you know, I tried to keep them quiet on the outside,
and let the inside be what was exciting about it.
So, as they were traveling, they're kind of hunkered down.
I used references from real traveling theaters.
So, all of their camping gear is bright and colorful,
and we used some flies over the top for like sunshades
and a way to kind of connect the tents,
so that everyone has their own tent.
I just love seeing them all laying out as like a little hub,
like a little community.
THE CONDUCTOR: We have completely deconstructed Hamlet this season.
-Set in Poland. -SPEAKER: Portland.
Whatever.
What?
I think what's interesting is that Shakespeare
is just a bit dated in its complexity of language,
but that work is relevant and good and solid,
and there's a bigger story about going home
built into Station Eleven
that is very much like the plot of Hamlet.
Hamlet has so many echoes through the story.
You know, as the show goes on,
we find out that it's all about parents and children,
and it's about betrayal, and it's about love and grief.
You know, and grief, I think, is maybe the biggest thing.
And this idea that Hamlet, who's obsessed with his loss,
is something that people can relate to, is major.
And why, in Station Eleven,
we don't do a million Shakespeare plays.
We do Hamlet.
Because Hamlet, I think, is in many ways the most resonant
for these people who have lived through this traumatic experience.
♪ (RELAXED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
You know, when I'm on set, and I'm working with Jeremy,
I'm following along generally with the text
to make sure that the text is word-for-word.
And I'm looking for little things
to offer to the actors as the scene is unfolding,
as their performances are changing take to take,
just to make sure that
Shakespeare's thinking is as clear as possible,
with whatever's going on in the scene for them.
The actors are doing a couple of things
that I think are really interesting.
They're both trying to tell the story of the play,
while they're inhabiting a much longer arc
that is about how their characters move through
Shakespeare scenes.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
Together with all moods, forms, shapes of grief,
that can denote me truly.
♪ (MELLOW MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Kirsten's Hamlet's like the first design that we did for the Symphony,
because we felt like how important she is in the story,
we have to design her costume first
before designing everyone else's so she could set the tone,
and that costume came out really fantastic,
and we made it out of old puffer jackets,
and it has all these arms.
And another element to sort of the design process is like,
how everything ages, you know?
And that costume just aged beautifully,
and has such a commanding presence.
Hamlet can look like anything.
Shakespeare can look like anything,
can be set in any time period.
So we really tried to utilize leftover remnants of our society
and almost trash-like art.
And we did approach it more like an art project
than it was traditional costumes.
You know, our poor actors were in these
big sort of contraptions for a long time.
But, they really were game for this like process
of wearing wearable art in the Shakespearean plays.
Grunge Hamlet is definitely more graphic.
The colors are more poppy,
and we tried to keep the lines simpler,
so we used a lot of things that would be in a golf shop,
based on the location they are in,
and it just ties back in with them sort of using--
utilizing the resources that they have.
And then, with that, I tried to keep the palette more lively
to go with sort of like the golf element of it.
Helen's work and Bruce's work, they both support and inspire.
She made an Ophelia costume
with this fantastic collar of golf gloves,
a corset made out of grosgrain ribbons, of--
Just a brilliant use of the concept,
but so expansive in her thinking and dreaming, and imagination.
And it's exciting and unexpected.
You're fake.
My love is real.
You're just inside of it.
I knit you out of it.
My entire family lived and died before we met.
That's true of everyone here!
There's so much creativity. The costumes on this show!
Oh, my Lord.
The sets on this show!
You know, I haven't seen anything like this before.
You know, everybody's just been amazing,
just working themselves to the bone.
Ruth, the set designer,
and Helen and Austin, the costume designers,
have just done such a beautiful job of articulating, like,
ecstatic dedication to art,
which I think is so integral to the Symphony.
It was like, "Oh, yeah. This is worth surviving for."
This would feed you. It was really beautiful.
SOMERVILLE: The great thing about this show,
to me, is that we need not just entertainment,
but we need art.
We need people performing and doing incredible things,
and pushing themselves to make something up,
but make it matter.
We're telling a small story, but it's also a really big story
and you need to do all the work to get the small moments.
It's a great way to honor all the heads of department,
and all the talent that went into making this universe.
It's a period where everyone's work matters together,
all at once, and it's pretty stunning.