Wine Glass Players is a readers theatre company with a 21+ twist. They wanted to create a space for theatre enjoyers to gather, enjoy theatre, but leave the decorum at home.

They approached me with a soft concept centered around the wine glass melded with the classic comedy and tragedy theatre mask iconography. During our discovery meeting we kept gravitating toward Dionysus, the Greek God of not only wine, but serendipitously also theatre. We were inspired by wine labels, and the tarot, all strung together by the common thread of bacchanalia, reverie, and community.

I stayed true to the clients original idea of overlapping the wine glasses and the theatre masks, reiterating the arched cup shape in the overall composition. I drew from the Three of Cups card in the Tarot, the card of friendship and comradery. I illustrated the cups pouring into each other and then finally into a third cup, the cup that represents the audience, so as to say you will leave here with your cup full. This liquid detail also adds a kinetic energy to the design that further sells the sense of reverie.

They wanted a foliated element and my first instinct was grapevines, but it leaned too far towards actual wine company branding. Instead, I opted for a yellow rose, a callback to the tradition of throwing roses at the feet of performers, to bring it back visually into the performance space while paying homage to one of the most ancient of theatrical traditions.