Castaways and cutouts 

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A wedding bouquet toss can be fertile ground for comedic bits in a stage play. Two bridesmaids could have a tug-of-war, for instance, or the flowers might land in the arms of a bemused dude who ends up enjoying his moment.

But the bouquet must be big enough or the joke loses its power. It’s the job of Lizz K.d., the production manager of props with the Rochester Community Players, to translate it visually for the Highland Bowl stage.

For “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” a lesser Shakespeare work being mounted by the company this month, K.d i’s tasked with making the props bold and easy to view for audience members hundreds of feet away.

One way to do that? Cardboard. Lots of cardboard.

“My entire studio and every room in my house is entirely full of cardboard boxes,” K.d. said, “until we cut them down into little smaller pieces and glue them together and paint them and prime them and cut them into props. I've been calling it a cardboard cave.” That cardboard will be seen as crowns, swords, ships, ocean waves and, yes, bouquets during the run of “Pericles” from July 11 through 27. It’s the 27th annual Shakespeare in the Park the company has staged at Highland Bowl, the outdoor amphitheater in Highland Park.

Director Kathryn Rebholz pointed out how their eye-popping props can’t be picked up from thrift shops. “​​Almost everything has to be built, which is not always the case in performances such as this,” she said.

This year’s production is meant to evoke a storybook feel, hence the thick black outlines that give the props a cartoon aesthetic. One of the challenges, K.d. said, is simply sourcing enough corrugated cardboard to make each prop two layers thick. By early June, the production had enough to create a four-foot-high stack.

“The crown that I made is two layers, but I had to use my own head to measure and build off of my head,” K.d. said, “which is why I have paint and glue in my hair all the time.”

That messy construction will help “Pericles,” a swashbuckling adventure that dates to 1609, really pop. The epic finds its title hero pursued by killers and shipwrecked only to find love and happiness and have both ripped away from him (though eventually rediscovered). This “Pericles” production boasts 15 actors, many playing several parts. Rebholz originally envisioned this staging as an animated television show, which evolved into the storybook come to life concept.

“Pericles’ ship travels him from place to place through the Mediterranean, so there'll be cast members holding the water and holding the ship as it travels across the stage to be able to show that movement to the audience in the way you might see on the page of a book,” she said.

The actors, not the props, translate the emotion of the scene, though the props help — especially for humor. Madeleine Fordham plays Thaisa, Pericles’ wife, who is thought dead for much of the play. Their wedding scene early on, therefore, has to be both memorable and funny.

“In Act II, I have this wedding ring the size of a one-dollar bill, a little cardboard cutout, so that the audience can see it,” said Fordham. “We have to really play up all the humor because so much of the play is dark and sad.” The actor playing Pericles himself, Edward Byrne, believes the play has staying power with modern audiences because of how its lead endures a crucible of hardship across five acts. Nevertheless, he persists — and is rewarded in the end for his perseverance.

“We can interpret and relate to him as almost an absurdist character with how many bad things happen to him in a pretty rapid succession,” Byrne said. “The question becomes: How do you try to sustain yourself through that?”

The scale of Pericles’ odyssey may work well on the Highland Bowl stage, where a two-dimensional visual style can be contrasted with high emotional stakes. That vision also speaks to the staying power of the natural amphitheater as a venue for experiencing live theater.

“My bio says I would live (in the Bowl) if I could,” Ben Gillooly, who plays three different roles, said. “It's really powerful to stand on that stage and look up the hill over to South Avenue and just see it, on a good night, full of spectators.”

Patrick Hosken is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].