Troilus & Cressida Show Poster

Troilus & Cressida will always leave me with a sense of bitterness and pity, as this incredible work, along with the entire theater, was forced to shut down due to the pandemic lockdown. However, that doesn’t mean all the creative work put into this show remains in the dark.

Seattle Shakespeare Company took on the challenge of staging one of Shakespeare’s least popular plays, Troilus & Cressida. Known for its controversial themes and complex narrative, it’s a play that even literary enthusiasts find challenging. With few precedents for poster art, I had to dig deep for inspiration. My rabbit hole eventually led me to an Amazon product page for plastic Trojan army toys.

Troilus & Cressida tells a rather impure love story between Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Cressida, the daughter of a Trojan traitor, set amidst the chaos of the Trojan War. To capture that chaotic atmosphere, the plastic Trojan army toys felt perfect. Originally tan and blue, I reimagined the Trojans and Greeks in stark black and white to create a simple division. But as I considered the characters’ moral complexities, I realized that no one in this story is purely good or bad. So, I added a third layer of silver-toned figures to represent the main characters as complex, flawed individuals caught in the gray areas of conflict. And of course, our “tragic lovers” needed special treatment, so I isolated Troilus and Cressida in bright red.