La Bricoleuse

This year's symposium is hosted by the costume program at Ohio University. OU's graduate program offers concentrations in Costume Design, Costume Production, and Costume Crafts, and with its "triple-threat" faculty of Holly Cole, David Russell, and Kjersten Lester-Moratzka, it's really become the place to go for an MFA if you want to do creature crafts, walkarounds/bigheads, and macropuppetry. Also assisting with the symposium are OU grads Brandon Kirkham and Marit Aagaard, as well as several other former and current students and colleagues of the hosts.

The first day of the symposium consisted of a general overview (including the survey of their mask and puppet collection, photos of which i posted earliers) and some initial lectures from Holly and David about their respective workshops: foam construction and Veraform (thermoplastic mesh) construction techniques. Then (after a delicious prix fixe lunch at a local Middle Eastern restaurant) we all split into two groups and began working!

I've got time to post some photos and overview info on our first workshop--carving matrix sculptures in blue insulation foam, for the purpose of making Veraform heads! This workshop was led by David Russell, and our subject at hand was rabbit heads. (I gather Mr Russell recently made something like 40 rabbit heads for a production of The Velveteen Rabbit so was now intimately familiar with this particular head shape for the purposes of teaching large groups.)

( Read more... )

One cool thing that happens in the summertime at the theatre i work for, PlayMakers Repertory Company, is the Summer Youth Conservatory.

PRC partners with area arts organization the Carrboro ArtsCenter to produce a show with a cast entirely composed of young local performers. Kids and teens from all over the Triangle area audition for one of forty positions in the cast. Scripts are chosen with a mind to accomodating that size of cast, featuring child performers (past shows: Oliver! and The Music Man). Typically older teens portray the adult roles while the younger ones (and smaller-framed folks) play children's roles.

The idea is to provide a unique theatrical experience whereby young performers have the experience of putting on a show within the context of a professional theatre--they perform on the PlayMakers stage directed by PRC directorial alum Tom Quaintance (who directed our mainstage production of The Little Prince), for which our scenic shop produces a custom-built set, using costumes from our stock coordinated and fit by a professional costume designer, etc.

The SYC is run on the model of an extended workshop or series of educational classes--the participants do pay tuition--but there are enough sponsors and supporters that any child or teen who auditions and is offered a place in the Conservatory is guaranteed a scholarship if financial need prevents them from accepting/participating.

The Conservatory partnership has been a huge success--community response is overwhelmingly positive and all the shows always sell completely out, even the SRO. It has also, up until this summer, focused entirely on the performance aspect of production for the participants. This year, we started a tech track, though, which i'm really excited about!

The tech track is aimed at an older age range--the performers can be as young as 12, but all six of our first "class" of tech folks are 16-19 years old. They get a crash-course in all aspects of theatre production, in a series of two-day workshops taught by the PRC tech staff on-site in our facilities; at the end, they have the option to apprentice in one or more areas, working on the SYC production, which this summer is Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. So, a student with a particular interest in costuming might assist SYC costume designer Jade Bettin, while a student who wants to pursue stage management could be a part of Stage Manager Sarah Smiley's team. They come out of the Conservatory at summer's end with a fully-produced show on their resume, stuff for inclusion in a portfolio (should they wish to pursue a career in theatre or apply to a university program that requires such), and--ideally--a positive mentorship experience with a working professional in the field whom they can list as a future reference.

For the students' first two days, we had them in the costume shop, learning about the work that we do. Jade spent the first day talking about the responsibilities of a costume designer, instructing them in some basic sewing techniques, and leading them through the process of designing a fairy costume concept for Midsummer, complete with the element of a half-mask. Then on the second day, I talked with them about the various production jobs in costuming (drapers, tailors, first hands, stitchers/operators, craftspeople, milliners, painter/dyers), and led a mask-making workshop in which they took a shot at bringing their designs to life!

I took some photographs to share, because boy, did they turn out some great work. First, some design context... ( click for photos )

First, some context which may seem self-centered, but is also relevant:

I've got a couple of really exciting gigs starting up in the next few days! I'll be working Saturdays doing millinery assistance at the Brooklyn studio of Cha-Cha's House of Ill Repute, helping produce their fall line of hats. I'll also be working at Parsons-Meares, one of the big Broadway shops, on costumes for DreamWorks' Shrek: The Musical, which will premiere in Seattle before moving to Broadway in the fall.

I'm predicting that i won't be allowed to post anything about the Shrek costumes because of confidentiality clauses relating to an as-yet-unpremiered show, but I might be able to do a post or two on what we're doing at Cha-Cha's, maybe an interview with the lead designer or a preview of the line or something.

Today's post though is about The Lion King, which i saw last Saturday at the Minskoff Theatre in Times Square.

Not only is it a tour de force of innovative, fantastic costume and production design, but The Lion King is also commendable for how "open source" a lot of its costuming actually is. Julie Taymor's book, The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway contains a wealth of information on how the costumes and macropuppet elements were constructed--not only her design renderings, but drafts and diagrams created by the artisans who built them, materials and technique descriptions, photos of mockups, you name it. After poring over the pages on the construction of the articulated mask mechanism for Scar while developing our Fox in The Little Prince, it was exciting to see the real thing in action. Even more exciting was the lobby display of Scar's costume (among others), which patrons were allowed to photograph!

( pictures and discussion )

I've shared some photos of some of these in-process, in previous posts, but i've got finished photos now. These masks make only the briefest appearance in the show (opening Saturday, with previews starting Wednesday evening), so get a good look at them here!

( Click for Carnivale-style mask images: two foxes, a unicorn, and a lady's visard )

I'll have some good project posts coming soon (probably this week) on some more Amadeus projects, but i wanted to give a heads-up to my Carolina readership about an exciting event happening soon in Raleigh: Puppet Fusion!

Puppet Fusion is three days worth of puppet and mask performances and workshops, featuring a host of artists and artisans from around the country, including Vermont's legendary Bread and Puppet Theatre, Chinese Theatre Works of New York, and North Carolina's own Hobey Ford and Paperhand Puppet Intervention.

In related news, there's a fairly long article in today's News & Observer about Paperhand, which includes a link to a video on YouTube featuring their work.

First off, i have to say BIG CONGRATULATIONS to all of us here at PlayMakers for completely cleaning up on the Independent Weekly's picks for the best regional theatre of 2007. We were named in nine categories!

( click here for the list )

Please note that i am only listing the PlayMakers mentions--most every category has several other listings as well from other great local theatres! (Click the article link in the opening paragraph to read them all.)

And, The Little Prince also got a nod in the News & Observer's "Year's Best in Triangle Theatre" list as well. Whoo!

But, on to the book reviews! Whenever i start on a new class, i usually do some book review posts, either of books i'm considering as primary texts for the students or of books i intend to use as supplemental references. My previous posts on books relating to this semester's topics are as follows:

Reviews of various accessories books
Reviews of various jewelry-making books
Reviews of various shoe-related books

There's a new book out that i think TONS of people who read this blog will probably want to run right out and buy, Tan Huaixiang's Costume Craftwork on a Budget. This is a particularly good supplementary reference for those who have Sylvia Moss' brilliant textbook, Costumes and Chemistry, which is invaluable for the safety information and product analyses alone, but also features tons of great information at the end following step-by-step processes for creation of high-end Vegas showgirl costumes, Broadway effects, etc. Moss' projects are generally big-budget ones (quite useful to read about but beyond the range of most regional and university theatres' budgets), whereas Tan Huaixiang's book illustrates ways of creating elaborate effects, but offers creative ways of using cheap, easily obtained materials to achieve complicated "fantastical" costume looks.

For my own use, i'm on the fence about using it as a text for my classes because it seems to be aimed toward designers who primarily work jobs where there's no crafts artisan and do their own crafts, and our program is fairly specific in its focus--top level Costume Production. There's no design track for graduate students at all, so the designer-centricity of the text isn't relevant. There's also a HUGE middle section on millinery and headdress-making that's not really my speed--i'm satisfied teaching my millinery course from Denise Dreher's From the Neck Up and Tim Dial's Beginning Millinery for the Stage. I do think it's pretty exciting for its masks and prosthetics section; there's not really a good up-to-date text on mask making specifically for theatre (Thurston James' Propbuilder's Mask Making Handbook is from the early 1990s, out of print now, and lacking in the safety precautions area.). I intend to keep it in my shop library--many of the projects are very inspiring--and if you are a designer who typically does a lot of your own craftwork, you probably want to check it out!

Probably the most complex crafts project on The Little Prince was the Fox macropuppet.

The project was largely the province of my assistant, third-year MFA candidate Emily Vandervoort Mason. Emily's degree focus is craftswork, so i asked her what, of the range of projects on the show, did she want to be responsible for (with my oversight and input, of course). I wanted her to have the opportunity for a great portfolio inclusion. Bravely, she picked the Fox.

( pix and method )

Recall if you will back in October when i posted the first installment about the development and creation of the masks for our next mainstage show, The Little Prince. Since we open on Saturday and there are costume renderings of some of the characters up on the official site, i think it's ok for me to post a follow-up!

When last i posted, i had left it at a cliffhanger with me beginning the sculpting process of the mask matrices. ( Read more... )

We've begun production on The Little Prince, perhaps the most crafts-heavy show of the season. It features tons of masks, hats, and other crazy stuff (as you would expect, given that you have characters playing flowers and animals).

I've already begun the mask-making process because i'd like for the actors to have their masks in rehearsal from Day One--that way, every bit of the character development is informed by the mask and we avoid the sort of creative dissonance that can come from introducing a mask after the actor has begun to create a physicality for the character.

( Check out the first part of the process! )

Friday afternoon, costume staff and students were granted the opportunity to observe the dressing process of the dancers of the Khmer Arts Academy's production of Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magic Flute, currently touring the US. The performance appeared courtesy of the Carolina Performing Arts series. Theatre empresario Peter Sellers sponsored the production, choreographed and directed by Cambodian classical dancer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, as part of a Vienna Mozart festival. Now the KAA have taken it on tour.

If you are unfamiliar with what traditional Cambodian dance is like (i certainly was), check out some of the articles written about the academy and the tour:

New York Times article
Daily Tarheel (UNC college paper) article
Responses to the premiere last month at the University of Florida.

Shapiro told us a lot of interesting information about classical dance conventions in the Cambodian tradition. For example, all the roles are performed by women, but there are four character archetypes: men, women, giants (who apparently also double as gods or demons), and monkeys. The men are signified in costume by the wearing of peaked epaulets. Characters also wear masks, such as the Garuda, a bird-creature.

Shapiro also talked about the genesis of this particular production, in which she played upon Mozart's opera's themes of "enlightenment and change," a phrase adopted and perverted by the genocidal Khmer Rouge in the Cambodia of Shapiro's youth.

We were allowed (after removing our shoes) to come backstage and observe the dressing process of the 31-member dance troupe. These dancers begin the dressing process 4.5 hours before the performance begins--they are stitched into their shirts and undertrousers, and the other pieces are all held on with a combination ties and artful folding processes. Everyone was very friendly and happy to answer our questions, show us details of their methods and traditions, and allow us to take photos. All the pictures in this post are courtesy of photographer Amanda Phillips.

( Click to see pictures! )