Southeast Missouri State University students will exhibit displays on medieval castles to coincide with the Department of Theatre and Dance's production of "Macbeth."

"I wanted my students to do something that was going to be hands-on and something that will be practically useful for them as they go on in their future careers," Dr. Vicky McAlister, an assistant professor in the Department of History, said.

McAlister's class, EH 400 Castles in Context, is an upper-level class that covers different types of European castles as well as how they fit into medieval society. She came up with the project after meeting with "Macbeth" director Bart Williams.

"After some development, I came to the idea that they would do a project related to the castles of 'Macbeth' and the context of the medieval play," McAlister said. "And apart from that I really left it up to the student as to what exactly they wanted to do, whether it was a poster or what other form they wanted it to be."

The class consists of 20 students and they were separated into seven groups of two or three students.

"Some of them are doing castles that are mentioned in 'Macbeth' or some action takes place in Macbeth, and some of them are providing the context so we've got a group who've done Scotland and shown where the different sights are in Scotland and what you might find around the castle," McAlister said. "And then we've got another group who are looking at the role of women in a castle in light of Lady Macbeth being such a key person [in the play]."

Some of the other projects include explanations of music, feasting and lordly life during medieval times.

"My group decided to choose the actual castle that 'Macbeth' takes place in, which is Cawdor Castle, and we decided we were going to make Cawdor Castle or at least make a replica of it and then on a poster kind of describe the history of it, the landscape, why it was used, different things like that just so people can understand what's going on before they see the actual play because sometimes Shakespeare, obviously, can be confusing and if you don't have a good visual image of what you're dealing with it's hard to connect," Julia Hight, a student in the class, said.

Hight's group used a 3D printer to create their replica of the Cawdor Castle.

"I am doing Lumphanan Castle, and what our group decided to do was a poster, and the poster is split into two sections," Dan Will, another student in the class, said. "We talked about the history of the castle itself and then we talked about how the castle is related to 'Macbeth.'"

Will explained that it was where the real-life Macbeth was killed.

"We will be setting them up outside of the theater so that people will be able to go in and before the play starts or during intermission will be able to see the posters that people have created," Will said.

The projects will be displayed Wednesday outside of the Wendy Kurka Rust Flexible Theatre at the River Campus.

"Being in college... people don't really appreciate Shakespeare as much and they don't really care or it just is confusing, so they give up on trying to understand and I think putting Shakespeare into context, allowing people to visually identify with and see what he's talking about, what he's getting at," Hight said. "If they can understand the social context of it all, it's so much easier to understand and enjoy his performances."