Last night was our first rehearsal on the set, with costumes and the musicians-behind-a-screen/flat set-up. The usual train wrecks you get the first time you contend with costumes (several of the kimonos have trains, and the Mikado's train has stays or something to keep it spread out), props, actual stairs instead of imaginary ones, and the music suddenly sounding quite a bit muted now that it's no longer directly in front of you.
But oh, those costumes! We rented them from a company who took their Mikado production to the International G&S Festival in Buxton, UK, last year and won the Best Costume award. It's easy to see why - go to http://www.performingartssupply.com/GilAndSul.htm and check out those gladrags. The swirly things on Pitti-Sing's costume are seahorses - I find them utterly enchanting! And my obi has a huge lavender bow that resembles nothing so much as an enormous purple butterfly. The chorus women's kimonos are cream-colored with decorations in shades of yellow, apricot, blues, pinks, and purples. The men's chorus have somewhat darker colors, and create just as pretty a stage picture. All the costumes are fairly elaborate in their level of detail, and solidly constructed to survive the rigors of the stage. This is certainly the most elaborate costume I've ever worn, and one of the most sumptuous. (Now if I could just figure out how to keep that blasted wig in place...) I nearly always get "costume shots", if only backstage, as a record of the various things I've worn on stage - I'm definitely going to want LOTS of pictures of me in costume for this show!
The body mic wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. I can wear the battery pack in my obi, which fits snugly enough that I don't need to do anything further to anchor the pack, and the mic pick-up clips to my kimono lapel. Sometimes the sound was a bit weird as they were setting levels, and I have to make slight adjustments to my posture as I grovel at the Mikado's feet so I don't breathe directly into the mic, but on the whole it was no big deal.
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