Ladislav Vychodils approach to designing stages for Shakespeare home and abroad

This essay aims to present the most significant approaches Vychodil used for designing stages for Shakespeare plays, and to compare the designs with others, more typical of Vychodil's aesthetic practice. The paper will, therefore, ask the following questions: (i) what demands do Shakespeare's plays make on the designer? and (ii) how does Vychodil, in particular, respond to these requirements? In constructing my argument, I have relied not only on well-known resources and monographs, but I have also used material from the archives of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio, which have not hitherto been sufficiently studied by other researchers.