The Utah Shakespearean Festival recently unveiled new artwork commissioned to illustrate the 2008 season, the Festival’s forty-seventh. Featured prominently in the season brochure and the Festival website, the colored-pencil drawings were created by Festival Art Director Philip W. Hermansen and his son, Daniel. The drawings will also be printed as posters and on other promotional and souvenir materials this summer and fall.

“We wanted to create something unique to represent the Festival and this year’s nine plays, something that would evoke some part of each play and the Festival as a whole,” said Bruce C. Lee, communications and publications director. “I think Phil and Daniel have done this more vividly even than we had hoped.”

The project includes ten illustrations in various styles and colors and was envisioned and led by Hermansen, who oversaw the project and created a drawing of the Adams Shakespearean Theatre to represent the 2008 season as a whole, as well as illustrations of Cyrano de Bergerac, Othello, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Fiddler on the Roof, The School for Wives, Moonlight and Magnolias, and Gaslight. He recruited Daniel for the illustrations of The Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar.

“It has been a stimulating and rewarding, albeit difficult, process,” said Hermansen. “We first brainstormed for images that represented the play conceptually without representing a specific scene or moment from the play. In fact, none of the finished illustrations are of the play itself, but of ideas or objects that, I hope, will help people think about what the play says and is.”

The project took five months from concept to completion and was a major undertaking. Hermansen started with small black-and-white sketches that were circulated among Festival staff for ideas and comments. Then, he created larger and more detailed sketches that were approved before he started on the final drawings. Even then, sometimes there were changes.

For instance, Fiddler on the Roof went through several very different permutations before the final illustration was finished. On the other hand, the drawing of The Two Gentlemen of Verona changed very little between the initial rough sketches and the final piece.

“I hope that people will look closely and notice the subtle elements and meanings of the illustrations,” said Hermansen. “For instance, Othello may see things as being ‘black and white’, but they’re not. The candle is the light that he can put out and then relume, unlike Desdemona’s light.”

“Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof feels like he’s carrying the weight of the world,” he continued, “but tradition holds it together. And, of course, in Julius Caesar, one of the ideas that drove the illustration is that those who seek power must always watch their backs.”

“I think the drawings are successful,” concluded Hermansen. “I am pleased with the work. We have been receiving wonderful feedback. Everyone has their favorite, as do I, and everyone seems to be pleased with the project as a whole.”

The artwork is now online and can be viewed on the various play pages at www.bard.org/plays.html.