Lady Bracknell

 I designed a production of The Importance of Being Earnest back in October.  Our Lady Bracknell is a big wig wearer, has an Instagram account where she models and discusses the many wigs in her collection.  When she was cast as Lady B, she bought herself a gray wig for me to style and asked me to take pictures of the steps in the process.  She used those photos to do a little video for her account, showing the before, during, and after.  Here's the link:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwPRdQuifV/

That bonnet I was working on

 Here are some pics of the bonnet, all trimmed and ready to go.  I was pretty happy w/ how it turned out.  I'd do the ribbon ties differently in future, but otherwise it looked perfect on the wearer and on stage.

 

 

"Editorial" makeup

 I'm taking a Stage Makeup class this semester and this week's assignment, in preparation for our midterm, is "editorial makeup".  Apparently that refers to the really out-there kind of looks you see during, say, Fashion Week or other avant garde settings.  Here's what I came up with.

Getting crafty

 I decided to use my February show as an excuse to buy an undecorated bonnet, which I'm trimming and will lend to the production.  The lace and ribbon are all from my stash.  I wasn't too sure about this lace, but since I'm not worrying about historical accuracy (the bonnet shape is at least 10 years out of date for the production), I decided to use it, if only to save myself a trip.  Sewing on the lace through this tightly woven straw is slow going, but I'm really liking how it looks so far.

Getting caught up

I seem to be becoming more of a designer than a performer.  Two years ago I designed 5 productions (3 of them adaptations of Pride & Prejudice)  and garnered award nominations for 2 of them.  Last year I designed 5 more shows: Die Fledermaus, Tosca, Arsenic & Old Lace, The Importance of Being Earnest, and DOT.  Here it is barely February and I've already styled a wig for one show and am about to start styling 8 wigs (and possibly trimming a bonnet) for an operetta running in a couple of weeks.

As for getting on stage, there's been precious little being presented that a) I'm interested in, b) has at least one role for a woman older than 20 or 30, and c) fits my schedule.  Since doing Pirates 5 (!) years ago, the only time I've been onstage was for the 2023 Christmas Revels.  That wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped - we rehearsed in an unheated ballroom, we only ran one weekend, and the cast was HUGE - close to 80!

The design work is coming along nicely - I keep getting the occasional award nomination (though that's probably a factor of far fewer designers than performers), I've gotten to do some really fun, rewarding projects, and worked with some lovely people.

But I wanna go back to swanning around a stage in a costume and singing choruses in public.  Not sure how to make that happen, with so few operettas and musicals having roles for older women.

Did anyone miss me?

I just realized I haven't touched this blog in 2 years!  I may take it in a new direction.  I've been doing a lot of hair & makeup design lately, so this might be a good place to record what I work on and track my progress.

I finished The New Moon about a month ago.  Set in 1790, so just about everyone wore a wig, and one utility ensemble member had three!  I had a few false starts with some of the wigs, so I ended up styling close to 40 of them.  No, I didn't have anyone to help, so although I was also supposed to be makeup designer, I was so busy doing wigs that makeup got very short shrift indeed.  

I was styling wigs right up to opening night, and ended up restyling one of them because I wasn't too happy with how the first attempt turned out.  Fortunately, the singer, the director & I were all happy with the 2nd attempt.

The men's wigs were largely queues and braids; easy.  It's just that there were about 12 or 15 of them.  The challenge was the women's wigs.  They were all variations of the Georgiana, Adele and Matilda styles from 18th Century Hair and Wig Styling.  They took a LONG time - about an hour just to do a wet set of each one (though by the end I think I got it down to 45 mins), using close to 30 rollers each.  Then the wig had to sit & dry, then I had to take it apart and style it; usually good for another 30 mins to an hour.  (For these styles I definitely recommend the (discontinued, sadly) Lioness style wig, by Mona Lisa, if you can find one.)  Multiply that by 17 or 18 and you get an idea of how very much time it all took.

This is why I would never make it as a designer

We're starting on our final Lighting Design project of the semester.  Tomorrow we're supposed to bring in our initial concept & research for West Side Story.  Sounds easy, yes?  Except that I have NO idea for a concept.  I researched 1950s NYC, fire escapes, spotlights (for the dance, when Tony & Maria see each other that first time).  All well & good, and all pretty predictable.  I suppose I'll come up with something eventually; I just hope that "eventually" happens in time for tomorrow morning's class.

That's the first class finished...

Today was the last session of my Fundamentals of Theatrical Design class.  No final exam, thank heaven!  Instead, we had a final project due today - a Cornell box based on our design concept (earlier projects) for Sarah Ruhl's play, Eurydice.  We've been working on these in class over the past couple of weeks, with lots of helpful suggestions from our instructors, two MFA Design candidates (one scenic, one costumes).  I was amazed at how many different takes on the same story our class came up with, each of them with its own unique spark of genius.

I'm not thrilled with how my box turned out, but it isn't horrible.  Given that I've never tried anything remotely like it, I think it's OK, and some of my classmates had very nice things to say about it.  After literally losing sleep over it (I'd wake up during the night and my brain would start working on what to put in it, how to arrange this or that, how to anchor the glasses...), at this point I'm just relieved to have it behind me.  No idea what kind of grade I'll get for it, but I've got an A+ (101.56%, thanks to a bonus paper I turned in for "insurance") for everything else I've done this semester, so unless the instructors really hate it, I think I've got at least a B+ for the class.

This was quite an education in techniques.  I had to decide what kind of paint to use on the box so the wood grain would show through; I settled on well-watered acrylics, and ended up not sealing it with anything.  Anchoring the shelf was another challenge; regular nails were too big, screws ditto, and finishing nails tended to push the shelf supports away from the box.  I ended up relying on wood glue, which was OK because the heaviest thing on the shelf is the clock, which has no battery in it.  I had to use glue to keep the string wrapped around the nails, and museum putty to anchor the clock and the glasses in the bottom.

One of the instructors suggested "distressing" the clock so it wouldn't look so new and the purple paint wouldn't look so bright.  I first sprinkled it with water and dunked it in the ashes in the grill.  That didn't really work - the ashes didn't adhere to the plastic very well - so I set it in some used coffee grounds overnight.  That did the trick; once I shook off the excess, it looked old (which it's not) and dirty (which it definitely is, now).

Some of it was fun, like the painting once I figured out what technique to use.  (Scene Painting tips and techniques came in handy here.)  The glasses were a happy thrift-shop find, as were the glass "pebbles", seashells, and dyed nutshells that went into them.  Lots of idea were raised and discarded along the way - this art thing is quite a complicated, drawn-out process! :D

Marble

In this week's Scene Painting class we played with creating the effect of marble.  I'm happy with how mine turned out.  I had a little trouble getting some of the effects I wanted, so we got into a little bit of a time crunch (no wonder we meet for a single 4-hour session!), but I still think my "marble" looks pretty decent.  The curving arc makes it look kinda like a geode.  Not bad for someone who'd never attempted anything like this until I started this class.