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labricoleuseThe King was a challenging design in our recent production of The Little Prince. I had to work closely with the draper, M. Spencer Henderson, to pull off the extremely stylized effect of the costume.
design rendering property of McKay Coble, used with permission
This is the design rendering for the King. The King appears on an A-frame, which is rolled in from the side of the stage, so he's above the action on the playing area. McKay wanted him to look as much like the king in the book's illustrations as possible, so all of those loops and style lines are literal. We all talked a lot about how to make him this rigid and structured, and eventually decided upon mounting the costume on the A-frame, so the actor would step up into it, almost like a paper doll outfit!
David Friedlander as the King
David Friedlander as the King, Lesley Shires as the Prince
Here's the King onstage. You can see he has one of the masks i made, as well as a headpiece consisting of the crown and "hair." The hair is made from carroty wool roving formed and steamed into that Fauntleroy shape (a piece of horsehair tubing down the middle of the "roll" keeps its shape). The hair is attached to the crown, which is buckram and thermoplastic with millinery wire reinforcement and gold-painted wooden beads along the top.
The robe, which was Spencer's responsibility, is two colors of rayon velvet supported on a nylon "horsehair" crinoline base. The loops in the robe's skirt are held in place with long twill-tape supports, and are anchored to the A-frame of the set. The robe is attached to an armor breastplate which is bolted to the A-frame, so that when the actor climbed into the rig, the robe was sort of "floating" there in space, ready for him to stick his arms and head in. I didn't work on the robe itself, other than to be a sounding board for brainstorming some of it, though i did paint all of the large star appliques the metallic gold color, all of which began life in a shade of orangey-yellow.
And here are a couple links to fellow bloggers I've come across recently, of related interest:
It's just come to my attention that Emil Kang, the Executive Director for the Arts here at UNC-Chapel Hill maintains a presence on blogger.com. He writes travel-specific blogs for particular trips he goes on, scouting out artists and performers the world over. Check out his most recent one, detailing a trip to Russia, which is full of excellent photos and cool commentary on things he saw and people he met.
Tyrone Mitchell Henderson has been cast as "Lincoln" in our upcoming production of Top Dog/Underdog; he keeps a blog on his acting career and his handcrafting (he knits!). I look forward to meeting him! If you know the play, you know that there is a particular special effect at the end when Booth shoots Lincoln, which is probably going to mean I have to build some kind of arterial-spray blood-delivery contraption, so i imagine that i will be working directly with Mr. Henderson on that. Cool! Er, and gross, but cool.
design rendering property of McKay Coble, used with permission
This is the design rendering for the King. The King appears on an A-frame, which is rolled in from the side of the stage, so he's above the action on the playing area. McKay wanted him to look as much like the king in the book's illustrations as possible, so all of those loops and style lines are literal. We all talked a lot about how to make him this rigid and structured, and eventually decided upon mounting the costume on the A-frame, so the actor would step up into it, almost like a paper doll outfit!
David Friedlander as the King
David Friedlander as the King, Lesley Shires as the Prince
Here's the King onstage. You can see he has one of the masks i made, as well as a headpiece consisting of the crown and "hair." The hair is made from carroty wool roving formed and steamed into that Fauntleroy shape (a piece of horsehair tubing down the middle of the "roll" keeps its shape). The hair is attached to the crown, which is buckram and thermoplastic with millinery wire reinforcement and gold-painted wooden beads along the top.
The robe, which was Spencer's responsibility, is two colors of rayon velvet supported on a nylon "horsehair" crinoline base. The loops in the robe's skirt are held in place with long twill-tape supports, and are anchored to the A-frame of the set. The robe is attached to an armor breastplate which is bolted to the A-frame, so that when the actor climbed into the rig, the robe was sort of "floating" there in space, ready for him to stick his arms and head in. I didn't work on the robe itself, other than to be a sounding board for brainstorming some of it, though i did paint all of the large star appliques the metallic gold color, all of which began life in a shade of orangey-yellow.
And here are a couple links to fellow bloggers I've come across recently, of related interest:
It's just come to my attention that Emil Kang, the Executive Director for the Arts here at UNC-Chapel Hill maintains a presence on blogger.com. He writes travel-specific blogs for particular trips he goes on, scouting out artists and performers the world over. Check out his most recent one, detailing a trip to Russia, which is full of excellent photos and cool commentary on things he saw and people he met.
Tyrone Mitchell Henderson has been cast as "Lincoln" in our upcoming production of Top Dog/Underdog; he keeps a blog on his acting career and his handcrafting (he knits!). I look forward to meeting him! If you know the play, you know that there is a particular special effect at the end when Booth shoots Lincoln, which is probably going to mean I have to build some kind of arterial-spray blood-delivery contraption, so i imagine that i will be working directly with Mr. Henderson on that. Cool! Er, and gross, but cool.
