LIBRETTOS

Storyboards

Liar Lear King

Premiered Oct/2022, Grand Rapids Ballet

This adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy focuses on the journey of Cordelia, Lear’s disowned daughter. Cordelia takes on the whole of Britain before she is betrayed and killed by her sisters. Beneath this story is a dynamic of narcissism and bullying, and its effect on the family. Liar Lear King asks where the Queen was in this tragedy – she does not appear in Shakespeare’s text.

The storyboard (Kevin Draper, 2021) narrates the interactions between Lear, his daughters, and the Fool, played as the twin of Cordelia. It became a ballet, a short film, and an outdoor short.

Draper led the writing, music, design, and production teams in collaboration with choreographer Danielle Rowe, filmmaker Lora Robertson.

The storyboard (Kevin Draper, 2021) is how the lengthy work of tragedy was adapted to run in a 30-minute stage format; (chorus, characters, emotional zones, engagement path vs. response, visual worlds, function of arts verticals, use of the “bullying machine” developed by Draper with Tamar Charney, Nikhil Melnechuk, Stelth Ulvang, Lora Robertson); image Kevin Draper, 2021