June 2025
Written by William Shakespeare
Director: Cypress Cai
Stage Managers: Dorothy Guo & Sora Isogai
Costume Designer: Matthew Lee Assistant: Obsidian Manley
Lighting Designer: Joy Lei
Scenic Designer: Jesus Parilla & Joyce Hong
Sound Designer: Arwyn Austin Assistant: Christa Shibayama
The Shakespeare Company at UCLA's production of Twelfth Night reimagines the bard's play we know and love in the vampiric world of Illyria. Taking inspiration from Dracula, Twilight, and other vampire tropes, Twelfth Night follows human twins Viola and Sebastian on their separate journeys to make a life for themselves in this strange Illyria ruled by vampires. With a series of mistaken identities and love triangles galore, Twelfth Night asks just how much we would give up for the people we love.
As the Assistant Director for this production, the majority of my responsibilities lied in overseeing how to implement the vampire vision of the director into the previously existing text, and discussing how that challenges the pre-exisitng notions we all had surrounding the play. My responsibilities included collaborating with the director on creating blocking, taking acting & blocking notes and distributing to actors, participating in discussions on character building and objectives, and monitoring pre-show calls for lifts, intimacy, and fights.