"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.

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.

Practicing theatrical owies

The director for this show wants 3 of the characters to look a bit the worse for wear when they make their entrance at the end of Act II (they've been in prison).  To practice that makeup, I gave myself a black eye last night.  Not as realistic as it could be, but not bad for a first effort.

Tools of the trade

You should see the other guy! 😁

Wow, it's been a while!

Let's see, what's been keeping me busy?

1. overlapping shows since October
2. the news that the Chief's cancer is back
3. dealing with all his pre-treatment tests and assessments
4. a relatively last-minute decision to host another Christmas open house, once we knew the Chief's medical schedule
5. a quick trip to visit my family over the weekend between Christmas and New Year's
6. a show that loaded in the first weekend in January
7. rehearsal and design work for my late-February show
8. TONS of pre-class homework for my musical theater workshop

Yep, been busy lately.

Hellish tech week

Here I am, doing hair & makeup on another community theater play; just 7 performers in this one.  It's been a tough tech week, though; here it is Wednesday, just one rehearsal left, and the cue-to-cue (usually the Sunday before opening) was tonight!  Worse, this was also the first night w/ costumes and only some hair & makeup for the cast.  Kinda hard to see what your makeup looks like under the lights if you aren't wearing any!  This ain't Broadway; you bring your own supplies, and if you forget 'em, well, that's on you.  The backstage masking is terrible, too; too many places where the audience can see backstage, leaving nowhere for cast or crew to hide.

Tomorrow night is our final rehearsal before they do this for an audience.  Here's hoping we can fix all the glitches...

Design calendar filling up

Just in the past month or so, I've added a few shows to my designer's calendar.  The company for which I'm a board member has me doing their July production.  That one should be easy, as the director & costumer are going for a basic, contemporary look - no special effects of any sort.

A local company I've been trying to get in with has asked me to design their January show.  That one should be easy too - only 4 actors, who will be doing their own hair & makeup.  The only thing special I might need to do will be to show 2 of them how to do age makeup.  Like next month's show, once the actors know what to do, I can step back & enjoy the process.  (Not like Patience, which required special attention every night for a few of the cast members.)

In February I'll be doing The Gondoliers for the one company that actually pays me a design fee.  The only possible problem with that one is that I want to audition for it and I learned from The Merry Widow that designing for a show I'm also in can be something of a juggling act.  Ah well, first I'll audition and see whether I'm cast; then I'll worry about the juggling.

The show I'm most looking forward to working on, though, is for a community theater company with a reputation for high standards.  The play includes a couple of special effects that involve blood.  This will be the first time I've worked with stage blood since my stage makeup class 3 years ago.  More, I'll have to come up with a way for someone to bleed onstage that a) won't make a mess and b) won't stain costumes.  This is gonna be a fun challenge!

Wig laundry

I'm designing hair & makeup for The Merry Widow, set in 1895.  Almost none of the women in the cast have hair long enough to approximate 1895 styles, which means wigs for the rest of us.  Fortunately, the company has dozens.  After spending a few hours going through them all, I found 7 that might work.  However, you can tell they've been stored in a non-climate-controlled space (musty at best), which means I wanted to wash them before making anyone wear them.  Here's a kitchen sink full of wigs:

And here are 6 of them, set out to dry:

The beauty of being a second-year senior

.. is that I'm at the point where I can pretty much take what I want.  I just need 2 "supporting" classes at the 300 or 400 level, one 400-level theater history class, and one last practicum credit - 10 credits.

I just had my advising session for the fall semester.  I told Susan (who's a marvel - she obviously loves her job) that I want to take 2 classes this summer that will count for my supporting classes.  One is Jane Austen: Novels, Films & Adaptations, the other is Hair & Wigs for the Theater.  You may remember I signed up for the latter class last summer, but it was canceled for under-enrollment.  It's the same instructor, so I'm assuming I'd be able to use the textbook I ordered last year, before the class was canceled.  I'm crossing my fingers that they get enough students to run the class this time.

That would leave me with only the history class & practicum to take in the fall.  However, I've already signed up to audition for Character Development and Contemporary Musical Theater.  The second one is self-explanatory, but the other one would be a unique performance opportunity.  Apparently you spend the semester "getting inside" an actual historical figure whose portrait or statue is in a local museum.  Toward the end of the semester, you reenact that person at the museum for actual museum patrons.  For example, if I were doing Eleanor Roosevelt, I'd interact with museum-goers as Eleanor Roosevelt, clothing, accent and all.

I'll also continue with the Vocal Minor program in the fall (assuming I audition successfully) and sing in one of the choruses.  Gotta get my music fix, after all. 😉

This is the "problem" with having my advising appointment so much before the next semester - we're just going into spring break and I'm already looking ahead to my next classes.

No summer class after all :(

I was all psyched up to take Hair & Wigs for the Stage this month - ordered my book the same day I signed up for the class, so I had it in hand weeks ahead of time.  Then, a few days before the first day of class, I got an email telling me the class was canceled for insufficient enrollment.  Waaah!

At the Chief's suggestion, I reached out to the instructor about similar classes elsewhere, or intern/apprentice opportunities.  She was very gracious, noting that she freelances and therefore can't make any promises, but would keep me in mind for future shows.  She let me know that most professionals start out with a cosmetology license.  Turns out that's rather expensive training - $15K-$17K for 12-15 months of school.  The instructor said the university plans to offer the class again (hopefully with more notice, instead of waiting until June to set it up), so I'll won't be signing up for cosmetology school anytime soon.

Finals underway

Turned in my take-home final this morning.  Still to do:  Script Analysis research paper; Tech Theater final (shop math and identification of tools and lighting instrument parts; that one will only need about an hour or so of review); research paper, monologue & scene for Acting I; and a design draft and execution for Stage Makeup.  Busy, busy, busy!

Oh, and Saturday holds my voice teacher's trunk show (she makes jewelry) and working concessions at a holiday show.

If I can just hang on through this weekend, I can breathe again.  And Monday I start working in earnest on "Lend Me a Tenor" designs.  (1930s styles are so lovely!)

Good for my ego

Got a Facebook message this afternoon from one of the women in the first production for which I did hair & make-up, nearly 2 years ago.  She's producing a play that'll run this fall and wanted to know if I'd design hair & make-up for it, or even audition for it (nine roles for women 40+!).  It's quite far - probably 25+ miles one way - but more importantly, it opens a week after Mattress does, so no way.  When I offered to send her names of other hair & make-up people, she said she was looking for an excuse to work with me again. Given that I didn't really work with the cast that much - came to a couple of rehearsals, then worked with them during Tech Week through Opening Night, then didn't show up again until strike - it is very good for my ego to realize that I managed to make such a good impression on at least one cast member. :)

I called it!

As I predicted last May, the costumer for The Arabian Nights was one of 5 nominees for Outstanding Costume Design in a Play.  Hurray!  I knew the adjudicators would recognize her expertise.  I mean really - don't they look wonderful?

As a result of the halo effect, I was nominated for both hair (5 nominees) and make-up design (6 nominees) for the same show.  Thanks, L!  Now I only wish I'd gotten close-ups of reach of "my" actors in their glory.

They look great!

The Arabian Nights opened Friday night.  The cast did a good job - good energy, story-telling and movement (and the director has given them a LOT of movement!).  As I expected, they look fabulous!  She built wonderful turbans and other headgear for men and women alike, put them in lovely, rich fabrics in both muted and vibrant colors. The set includes "oriental" rugs all over the floor of the performing space, which also makes it look richer than the usual black floor one always sees in community theater productions.

The cast also did a good job of getting their make-up up to the level we wanted to go with the rich-looking costumes.  Many of them had trouble getting used to applying as much eye make-up as I kept urging them to do, but by Friday they were there and are even starting to like the effect.  (One woman, who came in a nice dress for opening night, decided she likes the dramatic eye make-up for evening wear.)  The hairpieces are working well, too; everyone has gotten so comfortable with them that if I didn't know they were "add-ons", I wouldn't be able to tell.

Now that I have an award nomination on my resume, I'm eligible to be a presenter at next year's awards ceremony.  I'd love to be the one to present the award for Outstanding Costume Design in a Play to our costume designer.  I'd bet serious money that she'll get a nomination for this show, and I won't be AT ALL surprised if she beats out the competition.  No, it's not about the awards, but I'm THAT impressed with what she's done - gorgeous work!

Still excited

Tonight's production meeting involved a lot of down time while I waited for them to work around the table to me, but then Laurel took several of us to "tour" the costumes she's identified so far.  Gorgeous!  She's going for a primarily warm palette (peaches, burgundies, topaz) with a few bits of green, blue, a dash of black.  She's making turbans and similar headgear for the men, has a few gorgeous headdresses for the women already - I'm going to have to do some serious research to bring my game up to her level, and I'm looking forward to the challenge!

The set will include carpets all over the floor, pillows around the perimeter, a couple of tapestries hanging on the back walls, and a few set pieces that will multi-task.  I'm really looking forward to working on this show and contributing my little bit to the whole.

Looking forward to my first production meeting

Tomorrow night is the first production meeting for "The Arabian Nights."  I've been itching to get started on this, have already collected the cast's headshots off the company's web site.  What really has me psyched about this production, though, is the costumer.  She's a longtime dancer, ethnographer, and ethnochoreologist.  We've already been exchanging emails; she's going for a "medieval Baghdad" look, including turbans and beards for all the men.  She's also asked about braids for at least a couple of the women.  I don't think any of the women have hair long enough, so I'll have to look into finding wigs.

One make-up feature that will nail the look will be "cupid's bow" eyebrows.  I'm hoping the director will let me put them on at least 2 or 3 each of the men and women.  We've got an attractive, ethnically diverse cast; they'll be gorgeous once Laurel and I finish with them.  :)