I am Not What I am: The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night.

Subtitled ‘I Am Not What I Am’ this project presents the uniquely twinned productions of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and ‘Twelfth Night’; two Shakespeare texts exploring mistaken identities, transformation and deceptions, and addresses the scenographic linkages between these two thematically linked plays; and how the layers of performance reality and technique can be supported or enhanced by visual and structural design ideas.

Produced by ‘Propeller’, the company Pavelka co-founded with Edward Hall (1997), which aims to mix a rigorous approach to the text with energy and speed. The designs Pavelka created in his role as production designer (set and costume) support the collapse of narrative lines to facilitate compression of story-time and provide integrated frameworks for the physical performances characteristic of ‘Propeller’, such as commentary on the narrative by a ‘spirit’ chorus and living sculptures. Scenographic ideas reference movies as diverse as Alain Resnais’ ‘Année dernière à Marienbad’ (1959) and Tim Burton’s ‘The Corpse Bride’ (2005). Performed at the RSC, as part of their ‘Complete Works’ season (2007) at the Courtyard Theatre with a UK tour, both productions have been performed, often as a double bill, in a season at the Old Vic, London before touring Europe, North America (including a residency at Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York), Hong Kong (2007) and Perth, Australia (2007).

Rehearsing in series rather than simultaneously, the design research and to some extent execution, pre-empted rehearsal development. The design process incorporates an appraisal of the matrix between the two plays and the physical discipline of making two variant design adaptations for conflicting configurations of stage format both here and abroad. The further employment of 3D modelling was assessed in order to gauge its application and flexibility under these testing conditions.

Biography
Michael Pavelka is an award-winning international scenographer who has designed over 130 productions world-wide, many of which have been new plays or new musicals. His 'Midsummer Night's Dream' and 'Galileo' both won Manchester Evening Standard Awards (for Best Production and Best Design respectively). 'Rose Rage' (a two-part adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy) won the 2002 Barclay's Theatre Award for Best Touring Production and (in a later production at the Chicago Shakespeare Company) the Chicago Jeff Awards nominated him for Best Costume Design. His designs for the Royal Shakespeare Company include 'The Odyssey', 'Two Gentlemen of Verona', 'Henry V' and 'Julius Caesar'. While on the Designer's Committee of Equity, he played a role in formulating prototype professional contracts for theatre designers. He is Course Leader of the Design for Performance course at Wimbledon College of Art.

Pavelka's early theatre work included designs for two productions by Lindsay Anderson including 'Holiday' at the Old Vic and for numerous other West End plays and musicals. He has exhibited at the 'Time and Space' and '2D>3D' expositions of stage design. From the mid to late 1990s Pavelka worked in Uganda with leading African writer-performers on the first African language production (in Lugandan) of Bertold Brecht's 'Mother Courage And Her Children', which toured the Grahamstown Festival in South Africa, and the African Odyssey season at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC.