Ask LaBricoleuse: Stage makeup costs and planning

martygreene asks:

I'm curious, do you know the average makeup expense for your shows? I'm trying to explain to my theatre that makeup isn't a last minute thing and that the student kits aren't sufficient to create the effects desired by the directors. I've gotten them to admit that dancers need makeup kits too (and to take a makeup course), and they're trying to have me design for more shows, but with a non-existant budget. I know the sound designers got their budget by presenting the average cost of sound expenses for other theatres, so I'm going to try the same. Figured you might have some info which might be helpful.

Thanks!

This is an excellent question, and an excellent method for dealing with the issue--in general, I think accurate research and documentation of variables like time and cost is the best way to make your point to management or those outside the department.

I admit, i don't know the average general makeup expenses for our shows, but i do know some facts and figures that might be of help.

We require all of our performers to own their own kit (actors, dancers, supernumeraries), which is intended to cover basic contemporary streetwear looks. We provide supplies and application for historical/specialty effects--tattoos, extremely stylized looks, blood/bruises/scars, etc. These come out of a wig/hair/makeup budget line. I think this sort of breakdown is pretty much par for the course--the other theatres on whose staff i've worked have had wig/hair/makeup budget lines as well.

For special effects (which are sometimes considered my responsibility and sometimes that of contracted freelance makeup specialists), we plan those well in advance--for example, the development of the five multicolored tattoo effects in Bryony Lavery's Frozen, we began working on the designs and execution of those at the same time we began making the costumes; the tattoos in our recent Romeo and Juliet were also developed along with the costumes. For the Frozen tattoos, we used $100 worth of Temptu's Dura Platinum. For R&J our cost was much less, partly because they were monochromatic (black), but also because one of our graduate students who has worked as a makeup artist ordered the product with his discount.

For The Illusion, in which our actors all had heavy Elizabethan-esque makeup in white and gold, 6 actors went through 24 cakes of Aquacolor and 4 bottles of airbrush makeup. We wound up doing a lot of experimentation with products for this one and tried lots of different things before settling on what we used.

For Cyrano de Bergerac, which was the last show of the season two years ago, they cast the actor's nose several months in advance to began work on developing what the "Cyranose" would be.

When i worked for the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA, we produced an Oedipus Rex for which we engaged a professional prosthetics artist. We sent him a cast of the actor's face onto which he sculpted some gouged-eye prosthetics; we flew him in for tech, where he trained our actor and wardrobe staff in how to apply them for the course of the run. I don't remember what he was paid, but i'm pretty sure it was a few hundred bucks plus supplies, travel, and housing. (He gave us a good deal I think because he was excited about the project.) By the same token, we did the same thing for a stitched-shut-mouth effect in Marat/Sade and the prosthetic wound up being unacceptable in performance; i had to make an appliance from a sport mouthguard the week of tech.

I will say this skates near one of my pet peeves, that of the assumption that makeup and crafts are one and the same field. I am often expected to solve special effects problems and create makeup effects, which is about like asking a horse breeder to groom your dog. S/he might be able to do it just fine, but not because it's actually got much to do with the actual focus of the profession. (Please don't take offense--i'm just yammering into the void, not bristling at the question itself! I've just had to deal with a lot of those sorts of "You do crafts so how come you don't do [insert random makeup/hair task here]?" queries in the course of my career.)

I would say, repost this query in costuming, costumes, and theatrecostumes and also to the USITT costumers' email list--can't hurt to get a wide range of input. It all comes down to the time/cost/quality equation. If they want to do something on a shoestring or last-minute, it'll look quick-n-cheap.

Good luck with your proposal for more money/time for these effects!