La Bricoleuse

We're working on a production of Ibsen's Enemy of the People right now at Playmakers Repertory Company, and i've had the occasion to do a distressing/aging project that some of y'all might enjoy.

Our production is set in the 1950s, and we've got a character whose very nice, new wool suit actually needs to look old and decrepit. The actor playing this character is one of our company actors, which means he's cast several times a year, and we have some go-to items for him which get used frequently--suits, shoes/boots, etc. Rather than wrecking a really good suit from our stock which we know fits him well and which would get future use, if it could be restored after this show, I'm using the Schmere line of products to do some reversible surface design.

Schmere makes a line of wax-based crayons and "smudge sticks" which have dry pigment suspended in them. You rub them on the costume, and they wash or dry-clean out. They're used a lot in the film industry, when a production might rent a HUGE number of costumes for a crowd scene and need them dirtied up, but not actually wrecked beyond restoration. For theatre, use of Schmere does mean that any treatment will need reapplication after each cleaning during the course of a run. For us, this means i'll need to "re-up" the Schmere at least two more times. Take a look:

A few posts ago, I made an update about the show opening tonight for which i have designed costumes, a world premiere of a new script by playwright and director Mike Wiley. The play, The Parchman Hour, takes place partly in Mississippi's notorious Parchman Farm prison.

My prior post talked about how I came up with the costume design for the inmate characters doing hard time, whom we know from copious research images wore ragged, faded, black-and-white striped convict uniforms:

( Read more... )

I never did get a chance to write up a whole bunch of seminars from USITT National convention, because Big River and the end of the semester carried me away. Now that it's summer though, I can go back through my notes and post about them!

This is the first of probably three or four in a series. All of them will have different topics, which for today is custom surface design and digitally printed fabrics, addressed in a seminar hosted by Disney, called “Making it our Own.”

This seminar was hosted by employees of Disney's sublimation print department, which is located in LA. I'm going to preemptively apologize to the presenters for my questionable ability to credit them. Going by the conference program, the presenters were two women named Rebecca Carroll-Mulligan and Brenda Mercure. I admit though, this was an 8 AM session and I did not take good notes on who said what when so from here on out I'm just going to talk about “the presenters” and the like.

Most of the fabrics the department produces now are for costumes for Disney's shows, everything from a one-off show that is performed a single time, to theme park productions which run 20 times a day and feature lots of duplicates of all costumes. The fabrics are worn indoors and outdoors in all weather by performers doing physically challenging choreography, and must sustain a huge amount of laundry processes. It's a facility with three employees, two printers, and a yardage heat press machine, and serves all of Disney's parks and productions worldwide. I was surprised that a company as huge as Disney has such a small facility, but they said it was growing as more departments realized and utilized its capabilities. For example, the sublimation print department has begun doing work for the scenic departments in the parks by creating UV resistant banners.

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Tonight is Opening Night for Pericles, so it's time for an overview post of the work that came through the Costume Crafts department on this show! This post doesn't include every single item we worked on, but it does cover quite a few...

First, let me offer my usual disclaimer that all of the images and information that i share in this blog is strictly by permission of the artists, artisans, designers, and companies that i work for. I have worked under non-disclosure contracts and the pieces i have produced in those jobs have not appeared on this blog nor been discussed. I have had some inquiries about the legality of "behind the scenes"-style blogging--when i write about PlayMakers shows and the UNC graduate program, it is with their knowledge and permission.

Now that that's out of the way, ( let's go! (Lots of images behind cut-tag.) )

In addition to the cage crinolines, which were featured in their own post a few days ago, there were quite a few craftwork projects in the current production of The Illusion, running through May 6th at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC. (The icon is from a candid photo taken at the opening night gala for this show--I think it's my new icon for "Yay, this show is done!" overview-posts!)

( photos and descriptions of dye projects, fabric painting, hats, and more )

Yesterday i had to distress two jackets and vests for our upcoming show, Stones in His Pockets. Here's a quick photographic overview of the first step in this process, soaking and weighting:

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First up: forthcoming posts will include the final two segments of my studio setup discussion, backstage at The Lion King, and an exhibit review of the current costume history gallery at the NC Museum of History.

This post though is an overview of the crafts projects involved in the PlayMakers Repertory Company's current mainstage production, The Underpants, running through the end of the month at the Paul Green Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC.

( photos and discussion )